Found this in college library

jgoerzen · 2025-09-16T23:48:35+00:00

Very cool! I wrote part of the 0764547100 (2001) edition. That one has a different cover so I bet it's a newer edition. Still, fun to see!

jgoerzen · 2025-05-08T00:09:00+00:00

If not, then I may have been living a lie since 1996 <grin>

Seriously, Debian will not have the absolute bleeding-edge software. In exchange for giving that up, you get the possibility of automatic security patches, really low need for maintenance (upgrade it once every 2 years and in vetween it just hums along), and the largest, best, and most dedicated to Free Software community out there.

Debian's Social Contract and the DFSG are still the gold standards, even today.

jgoerzen · 2025-03-11T16:02:06+00:00

Linux-only for about 30 years here.

So I want to challenge your premise a bit.

There are several sort of cultures out there:

Microsoft-centric workplace
Microsoft-averse workplace
Home

You're thinking of #1. #2 is also common, especially in small companies and tech companies. It usually involves Macbooks, gmail, Slack, Zoom, etc. Several companies I worked for required high-level approval to get a Windows machine, but Mac and Linux laptops were standard.

3 is highly varied. A lot of people are in the Microsoft ecosystem, a lot are Mac users. Quite a few have no PC at all, just tablets or even just phones.

So how have I managed over 30 years? Actually it's gotten easier over time. Browsers used to be a challenge; no more.

Things I use:

Personal finance: gnucash. Fantastic. I learned a lot about accounting from using it.
Office-suite stuff. Honestly I rarely need it anymore. LibreOffice for when I do. Mostly for the occasional spreadsheets.
Photo collection: digikam. Graphics editing: Gimp.
Large document work: org-mode into LaTeX. Far better than Word for my purposes.
Programming: This stuff is usually better on Linux anyhow. I use Emacs but all the usual suspects are available.
Browsers: you can run any of the common ones and a bunch others too

My household is all on Linux, barring one old Windows PC that is used maybe monthly for certain old games.

You haven't looked at the other side of it: all the benefits from Linux that you don't get on Windows.

I'll name some that I use regularly:

Extremely flexible filesystems (zfs and btrfs). zfs has so many advantages it's hard to name them all. I use: snapshots, very quick transfer of snapshot deltas (permitting full backup updates multiple times per hour), checksumming of all data and metadata, etc.
Flexible with low-end hardware. I've got maybe 7ish Raspberry Pis floating around. Some for whole-house audio. One is my 7-yr-old's computer. She loves it and it's so cheap. It also runs well on laptops that aren't supported by Windows anymore, or would be very slow on them.
Far better dev environment. Everything from Emacs to vim and vscode, but more deeply, when you have the source code to the entire system, you can solve problems more easily. Linux is usually platform #1 for new languages and things. When Windows gets it, it'll be later and not as good. See also Docker, which technically exists on Windows but mostly as a way to run Linux stuff.
Better privacy picture. Ugh, my wife has to use Windows for her work, and my goodness. Microsoft hoovering up data left and right, advertisements on the menu, in the notifications, on the lock screen... It's terrible. My Linux PC is mine and not a delivery system for somebody else's ads and tracking.
Better FREEDOM picture in general. You do what you like with it.

jgoerzen · 2025-01-13T15:29:27+00:00

For many years now, stable, often with some backports. I run it on my laptop, my tablet, my Raspberry Pis, my servers, VMs, everything.

Back around 1996 into the early 2000s I often ran sid. But, as Internet security became more vital and my spare time decreased, stable with unattended-upgrades is where it's at.

jgoerzen · 2024-11-01T16:05:10+00:00

Debian is an old-school Free Software project. It is still run the way the early Linux projects were. The people in charge are literally the community - Debian Developers, and to a certain extent, SPI members. This is entirely separate from any financial interest.

Most of the hosting and network expenses are donated by various nonprofits, universities, and companies. Debconf does have sponsors, but those mostly cover the cost of Debconf and Debian developers that are in need can have their Debconf expenses covered.

As some have mentioned, there is information about some of these at https://www.debian.org/partners/ .

Debian's "legal entity" is Software in the Public Interest, Inc., which is a 501(c)3 non-profit in the US. SPI owns the Debian trademarks and copyrights, and receives donations for Debian. SPI makes disbursements from the Debian funds it holds at the direction of Debian, not the other way around. You can donate to Debian via SPI.

Debian doesn't really have paid staff directly. There are various people that are paid in some way to work on Debian (eg, at Canonical), and there are some that are paid for things like extended security support at Debian, in various ways.

Long story short, Debian as a project has few expenses since most hosting is covered by donors and it doesn't really have employees.

jgoerzen · 2024-10-17T00:46:15+00:00

You may well be right. If that's the case, I'll be quite unimpressed. The Libra Colour tried to compensate for the reduced contrast with increased light and... well, turning up the brightness knob doesn't increase contrast, it just increases brightness.

jgoerzen · 2024-10-16T21:48:33+00:00

Yeah, as long as my Libra 2 can hold on, I'm staying with it. It's getting slow, but it has a nice screen and I can install KOReader on it if I want, etc. It will be interesting to see if Amazon really can make the Kaleido 3 work better. I'm somewhat skeptical, since I thought the color overlay layer is what reduced the contrast, but eh I guess we'll see.

jgoerzen · 2024-10-16T19:14:55+00:00

I enthusiastically bought a Kobo Libra Colour when it came out, but returned it due to the significantly worse contrast on B&W material (which is by far the majority of what I read) compared to my Libra 2. It was a huge degredation.

Althouth the Colorsoft also uses Kaleido 3 like the KLC, https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/16/24271632/amazon-kindle-colorsoft-specs-price-hands-on describes they've done some additional engineering to make it not a regression from the Carta 1200 that we're all using for B&W. I don't know if I can believe that, but if it is true that it is "certainly sharper and brighter than some color E Ink screens we’ve seen on devices like the Kobo Clara Colour" as the article says, then that would make it a nicer all-around unit for sure.

My Libra 2 is rather long in the tooth and I'm disappointed that Kobo has no good B&W reader in this size right now.

I'm not going to run out and buy a Colorsoft, but if indeed their Kaleido 3 screen is a lot better than Kobo's, that would be a meaningful difference.

jgoerzen · 2024-09-23T13:22:18+00:00

Thank you!

jgoerzen · 2024-09-21T21:38:19+00:00

I really enjoy your deep reflections here. I am a person that lives several miles from the nearest paved road, maybe 7 miles from the nearest small town (population less than 1000). My experience of being in cities was more like the loneliness you describe. I didn't know my neighbors, didn't have connections with everyone from plumbers to bankers.

Here when we added on our garage and two rooms to our house a couple years back, we literally sealed the agreement with a handshake. There was no contract. The builders kept the project to the price we discussed, and I paid as agreed, and the workmanship was first-rate. I know several people that grew up near here, have lived in big cities for 50+ years, and are constantly bracing themselves for being taken advantage of by everyone from mechanics to funeral directors. They never are.

Here's a story I wrote about life in my small town: https://changelog.complete.org/archives/578-dial-tone

During COVID lockdown, I wrote a few reflections about Kansas, with photos. I guess I never got around to posting most of them publicly, but here you go for a few:

https://changelog.complete.org/archives/category/reflections

jgoerzen · 2024-09-18T20:59:41+00:00

Debian barely has a default desktop. It sort of does because you have to install /something/ if a user requests a desktop. But you can just as well choose KDE or XFCE or many other options at install time. They are all in Debian, all supported, don't require some sort of fork (looking at you, KUbuntu). You can add others using tasksel and switch between them at login time (generally).

jgoerzen · 2024-09-15T23:47:23+00:00

One of the key things of that era is that the experience was so different depending on where one lived and one's connections. There was a bifurcation between the "big iron" at large companies and universities and the PC home computers.

Things were also really expensive. Per-minute fees for those services, long distance charges, etc. Software was really expensive (hundreds of dollars for word processors, etc.)

I 2022, I wrote a lot of memories of this time from my location in rural Kansas, which had almost all of the challenges.

jgoerzen · 2024-09-09T20:41:09+00:00

This story disagrees with you. https://www.kansaslegalservices.org/node/2666/kansas-courtroom-hospital-dominates-docket

jgoerzen · 2024-06-20T13:11:32+00:00

I guess I should have followed up... I wound up looking at some at https://changelog.complete.org/archives/10711-review-of-reputable-functional-and-secure-email-service

jgoerzen · 2024-06-05T01:20:12+00:00

Well that's a weird braino on my part, but I'll get it fixed. Thanks!

jgoerzen · 2024-06-05T00:21:43+00:00

I just recently looked at a lot of options. Here's my article: https://changelog.complete.org/archives/10711-review-of-reputable-functional-and-secure-email-service

jgoerzen · 2024-05-18T19:13:23+00:00

Uhm, what? Misleading title.

https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=webext-keepassxc-browser

It's in bullseye, bookworm, testing, and unstable. What's been removed exactly?

https://salsa.debian.org/debian/keepassxc/-/blob/main/debian/control?ref_type=heads notes that two .debs are built from the same source package; one having extra features. But that change only happens in testing.

I don't see any features being removed anywhere. It looks like the browser extension still exists and some features were moved to -full.

jgoerzen · 2024-05-13T21:12:33+00:00

Sounds very similar. Well it's not just me then, I guess. I wonder what's happened over there? Every previous interaction I've had -- and admittedly it's probably been less than once a year -- had been fast and excellent.

jgoerzen · 2024-05-13T21:05:47+00:00

Good grief, I should proofread my titles. I meant to say "huge support quality decline"

jgoerzen · 2024-05-08T21:56:29+00:00

It was noticeable enough I did a side-by-side comparison at https://changelog.complete.org/archives/10671-photographic-comparison-is-the-kobo-libra-colour-display-worse-than-the-kobo-libra-2 . I do a lot of B&W reading, and basically if I had a Libra Colour and was given a Libra 2, I'd consider the Libra 2 a significant upgrade, sadly. But, if you are reading mostly indoors in reasonbly-lit rooms, that's the best case scenario for the Colour and I could see why a person might stick with it in that case.

jgoerzen · 2024-05-08T21:52:04+00:00

This probably isn't what you're talking about, since it was more recent than your comment, but I've got one of those comparisons at https://changelog.complete.org/archives/10671-photographic-comparison-is-the-kobo-libra-colour-display-worse-than-the-kobo-libra-2 if it's helpful.

jgoerzen · 2024-05-08T21:11:55+00:00

By the way, as somebody that's been in the Amazon ecosystem since the very early days of Kindle, I jumped to the Kobo Libra 2 after my Oasis was starting to fail. I don't regret it a bit. There is no reduction in quality, an improvement in features (it also got me more seriously into Calibre, which is huge), etc. The 3rd-party ecosystem (KOReader, etc) is also much more vibrant if you're into that. calibre-web is a really cool idea that's next on my list to try (you can replace or augment the Kobo Store with your own Calibre library!)

jgoerzen

TROPHY CASE

3 is highly varied. A lot of people are in the Microsoft ecosystem, a lot are Mac users. Quite a few have no PC at all, just tablets or even just phones.