I don’t know how to do it on Android, but look into variable bit rate (VBR) rather than 320 kb/s. 320 kb/s is a constant bit rate (CBR), and means that silence is given the same quality and detail as the busiest track, and takes up space for no reason.

The highest VBR setting, V0, is indistinguishable from 320, but saves space. Depending on your ears and the phone speakers, you might be able to drop the quality slightly and save more space 👍

I think at least part of the problem has been the built in expiry date, and the fact that so many off brand Chromebooks are absolute shit. They have tiny screens and low specs, and struggle with multiple web pages open.

I fancied one myself to take out and about, as I do most of my work on my PC, but they all seemed to have under 13 inch screens, and a five year shelf life. I like to research my family tree, so have a few tabs open, but the lack of memory would kill them and make it painful to do.

You’re being downvoted, but you’re right.

People want something simple. Something that just runs the basics and automatically backs up online and invisibly.

The vast majority of people don’t need to have the choice of 17 different browsers, or 43 office suites, and they certainly don’t need the terminal or Powershell, or anything else. They just need a browser and a way to maybe write a letter and view photos. Maybe a way for the kids to do their homework. If their laptop spontaneously combusts, they want to be able to sign into a new one and have everything put back as it was automatically.

ChromeOS is perfect for them, apart from being a Google product. It’s something we tend to miss because we’re technically minded, but most people don’t care about computers, and don’t want what we want. They want an appliance. If someone created that system with privacy built in, it could be great :)

I’m in the UK, and I’ve had decent laptops from rapidIT and ITZoo, both .co.uk as far as I remember. I can’t remember which laptop I got from Rapid as it was a few years ago, but the first one had a faulty motherboard, and they swapped the laptop with no issues.

I had a Stonebook branded Clevo N750BU from ITZoo, which is an i7 based laptop, and Mint works perfectly on it. It’s quite old now, so you’ll probably get a newer one for your budget, but with a RAM upgrade it runs everything I throw at it. I use it for designing and editing logos in Inkscape and Krita, and for editing a website in html, css, and javascript, so anything newer should do it even better :)

A lot of it is momentum / inertia? (I can’t think of the right word).

Basically, Ubuntu was the distro for years. It was the one that just worked and was easy for new users. It built on Debian’s stability and made everything easier. All the beginner guides and how to guides were written with Ubuntu in mind, so lots of new users switched to it too.

Mint built on Ubuntu’s success, and made things even easier for people switching from Windows, by doing things like putting the start menu in the same place, and making everything look familiar. Because it’s based on Ubuntu, the guides all still work too. As Canonical started making unpopular decisions with Ubuntu, Mint took the lead as the distro to switch to.

Now, other distros like Fedora, and DEs like KDE have caught up, and even passed Mint for ease of use, that history is hard to overcome :)

I thought I had disabled it, and I don’t have the app, but I can’t see any way to remove it from any of the settings mentioned in the email 🤷🏻‍♂️

I don’t use them either, but still got the email.

About 20 years ago, I lived in a shared house in the city. I worked nights, so if I left a download running when I went to bed, it would affect the others in the house. I saw a post online where someone was giving away a cable modem, and not knowing much about how they worked, I had an idea that I wanted to try.

The cable internet came into the house through a coax cable, rather than the phone line, and was split with a dumb splitter between the router and the TV. I used a spare splitter to run a cable to my room and plugged my modem in.

I tried it first on my day off so that I could check with my housemates if it caused any problems. It connected and everything worked with no issues, except that it only connected at about dial up speeds. We were going out for the night so I left it connected with some downloads running to see if it would stay connected. When we got home, the downloads that should have taken a few days were done. A speed test showed that I was getting around 35Mbps, when the fastest speed we could pay for was 4Mbps.

We later found out that apparently the street was sharing a connection (to the cabinet I think, it’s been a while), and because my modem wasn’t registered, it was just getting whatever was left over. At night, when everyone was in bed and their devices were off, it was going a lot faster. It didn’t last long, only a few months, but we took advantage of it while we could :)

Look for the QxR group. Lots of their releases include special features, and often as a separate folder.

‘Gaming laptop, only used occasionally. Been sitting around for a while because my kid’s got a new hobby. £1,200 no offers. I know what I’ve got’

The pictured laptop has a Centrino sticker on it and looks like it’s been used to dig a garden

That’s brilliant, I hope it all works out 😊

It’s a great idea, but don’t forget about how these people are going to get support in the future. If something breaks, most helpers (computer shops, kids friends etc) are going to be Windows users.

Mint can do automatic updates, but both my laptop and PC have had serious issues with version upgrades. My laptop, which is Mint only, asked me to remove a load of software before upgrading, then booted with loads of errors and had to be reinstalled. My PC was mostly fine, but had no sound. It turned out that Mint switched from Pulse Audio to Pipewire, or vice versa, and the old audio manager left config files behind.

They were both annoying issues more than anything else, but would be difficult for the people in your scenario to get fixed.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to put you off, just checking that you’ve thought of the downsides :)

Yep. I’ve said this before, but I don’t understand how a community that only provides links to external communities is supposed to help Lemmy grow, as opposed to taking people away 🤷🏻‍♂️

Automatic Ripping Machine can pull the main movie off a disc automatically, but I’m not sure about imaging the full disc. Once it’s set up, you just put a disc in and wait.

https://github.com/automatic-ripping-machine/

Because this is a thought experiment. There’s no waste when nobody’s actually buying anything.

Sorry, my bad. I found my old 486 PC in my parent’s attic recently, and started planning to get it running again

I don’t know, heavy things attract other things, so maybe it is alluring ;)

This is one that was shared recently:

!https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/42247576

I can’t remember much about it now, but I remember really wanting BeOS. I managed to get it installed once, but couldn’t get the internet working, so ended up uninstalling it.

Because it’s a scam, and they’re trying to find as many victims as possible 👍