If you are coming from Windows, I would say Mint for sure. I have friends that are 20 using it and my parents in their 70’s use it. Both seem to like it and even find it easier to use in quite a few respects.

Speaking of Quod Libet, Ex Falso from them is still the best way to fix meta data on music that I have found - so very very handy.

Definitely agree - I usually use cmus because it follows my system theme as part of the terminal and kind of fits in anywhere, but for graphical players having options for skins is a must for me. Used to like all the options for this on AIMP when I used to use Windows.

That’s true, the problem with the original statement is that it is too broadly scoped by “knowledge”, implying that it is any and all knowledge. If I obtain the knowledge to write a singleton in object oriented programming while at work - even if the concept is applied to a work project, and later use the programming concept of a singleton in my own software, then they can’t do shit.

A simpler example that shows that it’s too broadly scoped is that if I get trained and certified to use a forklift for a job, and later start my own company and have to use a forklift, there is no precedent for my original employer to come after me for using a forklift in my business operation just because I learned how to use a forklift while I worked for them.

If the knowledge is proprietary or copyrighted or a trade secret and what I do uses any of that, or what I produce is a 1 to 1 product of that, then they can come after me.

Oh for sure - I think that this method has more efficacy in production environments ran by small businesses anyway, since best practices are rarely followed in many of them (until something happens that changes their mind on what they budget for haha), and even at that it is still a rare attack to see.

I am unaware of this type of attack ever occurring on a persons personal network, most likely because so few end users make backups, there is no need to go through the trouble of doing this, making this method useful only in highly targeted attacks.

We are definitely in agreement on proper backups still being the best method to recover from the vast majority of problems - even this one, depending on the backup solution.

They usually embed themselves in within the system files and have some scheduled job that basically checks for the criteria - if you are only backing up and restoring user data then it’s a non-issue, but if you do a full recovery including the system files/the system scheduler etc, then it can happen, and it is often necessary to backup executable and system files for production environments (true, not so much for individual users and their systems).

When I was working in an IT shop, one of our clients was ransomwared with this method. The saving grace for us in that instance is that our backups were going to a product that allowed you to easily break open and dissect the compressed backups pre-recovery, so we were able to determine where the malicious files were and kill them before pushing the backups. Of course we only noticed that it was in the backups after we had tried to push the backups once already, so it was quite the timely process - I think I worked for something like 18 hours that day.

You can read about such malware if you search for “timebomb malware” or “malware does not execute until date” etc.

The attack is not super common anymore, but still happens.

For example, here is an article discussing time bomb methods on linkedin.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/time-bombs-malware-delayed-execution-any-run

Another on the knowbe4 blog:

https://blog.knowbe4.com/ransomware-can-destroy-backups-in-four-ways

There are viruses that are time-bombs. They specifically don’t do really do anything until some criteria is met in the future, such as the current date being beyond a specific date, at which point they proc. They do this in order to make sure they are in your backups when you restore them so that they immediately run when recovery is completed and the system is booted.

little one deleted

Just an aside, but fellas comes from fellows which comes from the old English feolaga which means “one who lays down money in a joint enterprise” making it gender neutral despite contemporary usage.

Perhaps try pastels?

The Debian docs were really useful for me in setting up my 3090 on Debian proper.

Since Mint is downstream, maybe they will help you.

https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers

On desktop I just turned off the compatibility settings for proton and then reinstalled. Steam cloud held all my saves and they were unaffected.

This is beautiful.

I’ve been looking for exactly this for some time, really excited to try it out.

It wasn’t for me on Debian 12/13. I just had to add the repo for the drivers and run 1 or 2 lines of bash and I’ve been good ever since with my 3090.

I was not about to put up with windows co-pilot or recall and had already put up with enough ads and bugs.

I had been running Debian on my laptop for a year without a problem and then finally Windows 11 started doing this when I was trying to update:

Click check for updates? Same result. Wait a week and try again? Same result.

I could no longer trust that the OS was secure from even 3rd parties, so I pulled the trigger and installed Debian 12 - later upgrading to Debian 13 when it released.

There just is never any going back now - Linux is just waaaaaaay too good.

Now I just need something similar to happen with phones.

Helix, Kakoune, build Codium from source would be my suggestions.

I use Helix now mainly - I use Codium if I need a graphical editor for something, or one of it’s plugins.

At work the systems use VSCode but I use the Dance plugin with Helix bindings to get some of that functionality back.

On two versions of debian on two computers I have tried to use wayland and both times I have had really bad graphical problems and lag/stuttering of multiple visual elements. I’m sure it is fine when it works, but my problem with Wayland is that for whatever reason, it just does not work on my systems.

Each time, this was on fresh installs of the operating system as well, so I have no idea why it doesn’t like me.

Today on my win11 work system, the windows menu stopped producing output when I typed into it and webpages stopped loading. Had to perform a full system restart to get it to work again.

If I had a group or the time, I would definitely do so!

It’s nice for sure, but be sure to stock up on medical supplies if you get into it because it is pretty much inevitable you will cut yourself (sometimes fairly badly).

I keep good stock of a lot of sanitary cotton and medical tape (much more useful than a standard adhesive bandage when it comes to bandaging odd angles on your hands), alcohol, polysporin, and cyanoacrylate glue (super glue) - which I have had to use twice since I started playing around with hand carving.

The super glue helps for deep (but not wide) cuts to protect them while they heal and to hold them closed once you have a handle on the bleeding - if the cut is both wide and deep then I would still highly recommend getting a doctor to apply stitches, though thankfully I haven’t had to do that due to the hobby so far.

I got away without any injuries on this project though!

Thanks!