That’s not inherently bad. With Flatpak, you can pull your applications from any server, without any verification that the software hasn’t been tampered with. At least with Snap there is some control over that, no?

Also, I can’t tell you how many times flatpaks failed to download due to server errors. This hasn’t hasn’t happened with Snaps yet.

For the record, I do prefer Flatpaks over Snaps for its ease of use, access controls, and control over when I update my software. This is something I have found difficult with Snaps.

Bottles is the way. You can set up bottles (Wine prefixes, or environments) with predefined libraries and Proton for games. You simply run the installer through the GUI or add a shortcut to the executable.

Kubuntu would run just fine on that machine.

I thought it was a new window manager lol

I’m pretty excited about this.

Snaps aren’t as bad as people make them out to be. The only problem in Kubuntu is thflathead. Independent app to manage Snap security and access like flatseal. There is one, but you gotta install so much dependencies that you almost end up with the whole Gnome desktop. Otherwise it’s a great solution for use in Ubuntu Core for example.

I do prefer Flatpaks though.

Personally I prefer Kubuntu.

I find Mint’s or Cinnamon’s look and feel a little too outdated. Reminds me too much of Gnome 2.

And Gnome changed their whole desktop paradigm since Gnome 3. I find Gnome 4 more suitable for a tablet. I feel too constrained and limited by it on a desktop PC. It’s awesome on my Surface Pro tablet though!

KDE Plasma kept the classic desktop paradigm like Windows, with a fresh modern look and tons of customizations. (Though I try to limit those as much as possible) You can configure it to your liking and add tons of really practical shortcuts. Its applications are also very powerful. Much more so than Gnome’s I find, which are more minimalistic.

Yeah I was asking myself the same question. But it looks like they’ve started doing an Ubuntu Core setup for the Steam Deck.

I think PopOS was made especially for the System76 hardware, no? While it can still work on other hardware, System76 hardware is the one it was meant for.

Honestly, Ubuntu is great. It’s not bleeding edge where you can encounter yet unfixed bugs or other problems, and it’s not old enough that you can run into problems where the software is so old it doesn’t support the latest gaming stuff. It has great support from the community, it’s widespread, and comes with tons of quality of life things like tools to install 3rd party drivers, like graphical drivers for NVidia. Why change?

I understand your frustration and I, too, thought that blocking went both ways before seeing your post.

If you encounter someone who is harassing you and attacking your reputation without your knowledge and down voting your whole history, you should gather the proof and contact your instances mods. There’s a very good chance they’ll ban them either temporarily or permanently from the instance. Or contact the mods from their instance as well.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

I’m using Kubuntu 24.04. I’ve encountered similar problems and it always happened when there was a NVidia driver update of some kind.

What distro are you using?

I feel targeted. I commented somewhere last week saying someone should use OpenOffice when I meant LibreOffice.

It’s just old reflexes.

Through legal actions probably. They’ll sue and the volunteers who manage these instances will cave in because they have a mortgage/lease to pay and possibly a family to take care of, etc.

Democorporation

You’re thinking of coops.

I’m thinking of starting a grocery co-op in my neighborhood to provide low cost food to everyone. A co-op is a democratic organization where all its members have av equal say on how to run things and how to manage profits.

It can be a financial institution, a store, a housing complex, etc.

Co-ops are the answer to escape corporations and capitalism.

Good point.

I use Mastodon and Pixelfed mainly. But I also have an account on Friendica and Loops.video, but I rarely use them. And does Matrix count?

Oh and I forgot about Funkwhale for putting your music collection online.

Oh that’s interesting, I didn’t know it had events,

Yeah, same. I tried getting people to switch, but it was like pulling teeth. It’s even worse now, even with all the Meta Zuckerberg Trump bullshit and the obvious privacy problems.

The circles feature was awesome. Could post stuff for specific groups of people. Sometimes your posts aren’t for all your friends to see.

At first Diaspora seemed to propose a good alternative to Facebook ang G+. It has “aspects” which work similarly to circles. And the interface is similar to Facebook’s. However, it didn’t take off as much as anyone would’ve expected.

Now there’s also Friendica which closely resembles Facebook, but it appears limited in functionality. It looks more like a Facebook-UI to the fediverse, like Mastodon is a Twitter-UI to the fediverse. It’s missing the whole “circles/aspects” feature, and we still don’t have the groups feature either, which I think is very useful and much appreciated by Facebook users.

EDIT: Actually I just double checked and it does have circles actually.

This is probably controversial, but Google Plus was better than Facebook in every way.

I understand your point. But, I don’t think anyone here is creating instances in the hopes of collecting money. They’re just trying to keep the internet free (as in speech). And no, it probably doesn’t cost that much for a server with 16k users, but it still costs something and someone is paying for that out of pocket.

We have to understand that we’re at a crossroads right now. Most of the internet is dominated by GAFAM and they control the access to information and how it’s provided. They control the narrative and have a huge bias in favor of unfettered capitalism and fascism. They not only use your own personal information for profit, but hey also benefit from government subsidies paid by taxpayers.

Meanwhile you have a government that’s increasingly cutting funding for almost everything, including important organizations that fund critical open source projects.

If we want a free (as in speech) internet, we have to understand it comes at a cost and we can’t rely on governments to fund these projects. It’s up to us to put our money where our mouth is.

I’m by no means a whale. But, if us little fishes all band together, we can become even bigger than a whale.