I just installed Debian 13 a couple of days ago, and went with KDE Plasma this time. (I’ve always used Gnome and XFCE before.) So I guess I won’t see these updates for a while, but it’s great that they’re happening. :D And I’ve been loving Plasma so far, too.
Oh nice! That is very encouraging.
Yeah, I don’t think the Fairphone 6 is quite ready. In fact, since none of the previous Fairphone models ever got to full Linux usability, I don’t really expect it to happen.
I think the best option – and really the only option – right now is the Furilabs FLX1. I’m planning on getting one soon.
There’s a distributor, Murena, selling the Fairphone 4 and Fairphone 6 in the U.S. now. The Fairphone isn’t fully usable with Linux yet, though. Calls, camera, and GPS all still apparently aren’t working 100% with postmarket OS. I’m not aware of any other distribution that does any better. https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Category:Fairphone
It’s a Linux phone. That’s going to turn away exactly zero people, and turn on at least a few…
Likewise, I think I’m just about to buy one for myself. I’ve never used tap-to-pay with my phone, nor a voice assistant, and I don’t really want to. My phone is a web browser that can send text messages, make phone calls, and take pictures. My phone carrier is VoLTE-only for calls, and the FLX1 says that it has VoLTE now. I also need to use one specific Android app for work, but the FLX1 has some type of Android emulation which hopefully will make that usable.
The FLX1 is also the only one that claims to have a working camera. I’m not sure how good the pictures look, but every other Linux phone always just says “partial support” for the camera on the PostmarketOS wiki. The FLX1, with the stock OS, should take adequate pictures from what I understand.
I think syncthing already adds itself as a systemd service, and systemd has an “AC power only condition.”
I can take a closer look tomorrow, but here’s a page about systemd’s AC power condition: https://askubuntu.com/questions/654335/systemd-how-to-start-stop-services-on-battery
Edit: bah, the built-in AC power condition only checks once when it starts up, so you’ll probably have to do the custom option that was selected as the answer in that post I linked to.
Great list! I’ve been wanting to start using a smaller search engine with its own index, just for the sake of making sure there’s an alternative to GBY. (Also, there’s a new and useful acronym, haha.) Mojeek was the only one I was aware of before today.
BTW, exalead.com doesn’t seem to be a search engine anymore. I recognized that one because I remember discovering it a while ago…in 2007, maybe? But it looks like it’s not available as a regular search engine now.
edit: Also, this is the first really useful page I’ve read via the Gemini protocol, so thanks for that!
Thanks, that’s good to know. I heard the Framework 13 wad solid; I thought I was replying to a comment about the Framework 16, though. That must have been a different comment. I heard the 16 has a little flex.
I’m curious about this as well. The keyboard flex was always brought up by early reviewers for the Framework 16, and I think Framework said they would make a more sturdy keyboard for it later, but I haven’t heard any updates about that.
Agreed, I wouldn’t recommend Librewolf for casual users. I understand why Librewolf makes those decisions, and I’m glad that it exists, but you definitely run into some quirks when using it. I’m thinking about switching from Librewolf to Waterfox myself.
The thing I dislike about Brave is that Brave intends to be an advertising company. Brave’s original idea for revenue was that the browser itself should be the ad platform. Brave doesn’t block ads because it has a pro-user manifesto; it blocks ads because it dislikes competition.
That’s why it makes no sense for people to abandon Firefox for Brave. I understand the backlash against Mozilla’s recent ad-focused shift, but Brave invented that idea. So leaving Firefox for Brave is not an improvement.
It’s the browser I’ve chosen to use after getting fed up w/ Gecko’s terrible web compatibility these days (coming from Librewolf).
I’m curious about what those compatibility issues are. It’s been years since I’ve noticed any problems – and back when I was seeing problems, it was mainly because Google could afford to implement new standards faster than Mozilla could, not because Mozilla was doing anything wrong. Could it have been because of Librewolf? Librewolf has a ton of privacy-focused settings that can sometimes make pages behave in strange ways. (It doesn’t use your real time zone, it ignores dark mode, it lies about which OS you’re on, and it constantly clears your cookies to name a few.)
And on a meta-note: I dislike Brave, but I don’t think the parent here is a comment that needs to be downvoted. We can just explain why Brave is a bad idea.
Looking forward to reading it! awk has been a huge blind spot for me for a long time now.
Also if you type “bluetooth” it will suggest “Bluetooth File Sharing” above “Bluetooth.” That second one is the one you want for connecting to a speaker.
This irks me every day.