Google killed off their own cached pages last month and they’re now using IA as a replacement. Free linking is definitely important, but this is Google we’re talking about, and them using IA to save money - this feels a lot more exploitative if Google isn’t funding them in some way.

It’ll pass, but it’ll pass like a kidney stone.

Also don’t forget places like Free Geek - I’m glad to see my local one collaborating with YouTubers to get the word out but I’d like to see them do some more local outreach in the runup to W10 EOL (their computers often run Linux but encouraging people to switch to Linux is not their fight, imo). The donation might even be tax deductable.

Should I be worried? I was distro hopping for a bit and put together a Ventoy drive to make that easier, and I used it to boot the install iso for the distro I ultimately decided on for my gaming laptop. It seemed highly recommended and I didn’t know about the Ventoy bros at that point.

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I’m going to disagree with you on the “is Mac better than Windows” front - I think there’s good arguments either way though. At least with a Mac, the end user is still, mostly, who they are designing for. On Windows the end user is becoming the product.

Yeah but that broke GRUB and had a pretty specific error message associated with it. I don’t think problems with grub look like what OP is describing (although I don’t know enough to say for sure).

Anecdotally, I’m running a Fedora Atomic-based OS alongside Windows and that Windows update didn’t cause any problems for me.

🤓 https://www.protondb.com/

Got an extra USB stick and an old laptop kicking around you’re okay with wiping? Ideally 4GB RAM but 2GB would be okay. Start with Linux Mint and follow their installation guide - verifying the ISO image in Windows is probably the toughest part.

Or make absolutely certain you’re on the official Mint website, torrent it and don’t bother checking, I’m not your mother. “Who the f**k checks those anyway?” (Mint hasn’t been hacked since, but it’s part of why they’re pushing verifying, they know that their users have been targeted before. Also if something goes wrong with the download the install will fail and you’ll waste more time than if you just checked.)

If you don’t have a spare computer, a live USB can let you try Linux without making changes to your computer, but it’s going to be slow - a proper install is going to be a much nicer experience. If you’re okay without persistence (ie you can’t change anything or install additional programs for the next time you boot into it), just follow the Linux Mint website’s installation guide and stop before the actual install step. For persistence, try this method instead, but you really don’t want to use it long term, USB sticks aren’t designed for this.

Once you’ve tried it live and you think you like the desktop environment, but if you’re not sure you’re ready to fully commit, if your computer has an extra slot for an SSD you could buy a second one and dual boot, that’s what I did. (Dual booting on the same drive is doable but more of a headache, and even on a different drive Windows doesn’t always play nicely.)

Bazzite, it’s based on immutable Fedora. But it made sense for my use case because it’s one of the more consistent at working out of the box with Nvidia graphics cards and I wanted the gaming stuff, but Plasma should be more or less the same everywhere. I’m not sure which version of Plasma it’s running but Bazzite is generally pretty up to date with everything but I can’t check right now.

Windows 10 is being supported until next October, you’ve got more than a month. That said, I’ve been on Linux for just over a month and I’m so much happier with it. I really like KDE Plasma as a desktop environment. I made the leap because I was unhappy with Windows, but at this point I genuinely prefer Linux.

How’d that Windows update go? Did it break your grub?

I’ve been really interested in the PineTime, for the price point it seems like a neat little gadget. I’ve never had a smartwatch and I’d want something cheap to see if I like it, and with the PineTime I know it’s going to be less sketchy than anything else at that price point.

But everything I’ve read implies it’s not really a polished product yet. I’m really curious where it’s at and I’m perfectly fine with some garden variety FOSS jank but how much are we talking here?

There’s an article from this spring’s 2600 magazine that claims it’s all Bing results. I haven’t dug through their Python code and I’m definitely no expert anyway, but I’d also prefer not to post an article from a small independent magazine like that to let the people on Lemmy who do know more than me take a look.

Yup, I had to download a program to format my 64Gb micro SD card for my 3ds last year.

That’s what Disney does, although it’s less about draining the victims financially (there’s lawyers who will take the case without getting paid up front), Disney’s tactics here are about draining the victims emotionally. I was friends with the monorail pilot who was killed about 15 years ago, Disney dragged out the case and ultimately got his mom to take a settlement.

Found the Ventoy bro /s

Sadly, the certificate program I’m doing requires either Mac or Windows. I’m considering picking up an old Macbook Air for it just to not deal with Windows bullshit, but I already have a second SSD in my computer with Windows, whereas a sufficiently powerful MacBook would be around $200 used unless I can find one from Free Geek for a bit less.

Like a month before the API changes, actually.

Is there anything interesting you can do with a Chromecast dongle by jailbreaking it, if you can get one for cheap?