It’s very worth the try.

I worked with seriously hardware constricted machines for years and users on a learning curve.

KDE did not make my fancy when I tried it, when first moving from Windows, 20 years ago. Not then, not now. I know it has evolved a great deal but I can’t justify commiting so much hardware resources for the DE alone. And the obcession with the K’s are a bit of a pet peeve. I’m aware I’m getting some packages from it now and then and I have to eventually try it again but tomorrow is not the eve of such day.

I used Gnome until Gnome ceased to be Gnome and reinvented itself under that smartphone aspect. Mate forked and maintained that simple approachable look and feel.

XFCE is good but I missed the dual panel on the file explorer and eventually moved from it. It also tended to force me to mannually configure sound settings, keyboard hotkeys and other small things that otherwise were readily available.

I spent some time with Bunsen Labs installed on a machine and I enjoyed the look and feel. Conky was the jewel for me. But I had other users on that machine that didn’t adapt.

A short stint on Enlightenment. Not my cup of tea. Deepin was a disappointment. And I couldn’t motivate myself to manually configure a tile manager. I want a computer, not another hobby.

I used LXQT for some time but I felt it lacking. Very light and very fast but… Cinnamon is a nope for me, personally, but I have set it up for others and people enjoyed it, even more when coming from Windows.

But isn’t this the beauty of Linux? There is an option for everyone. Like you very well put it: you do you.

Doesn’t Mint just configures Cinnamon as default DE and leaves the rest alone, working from the stable branch? That’s my understanding.

I also run Debian. One desktop and three laptops. I run Mate, normally. The best compromise between useability and DE resource use. But I’ve used XFCE and LXDE.

My understanding is that Mint focus development of LMDE around Cinnamon but the other DEs are there nonetheless, untouched, like Debian releases it.

Really?

I always vote for boredom, which means I vote for Debian. It’s a well rounded, reliable and solid OS. It can be a bit dated on some packages but it rewards with very low maintenance. It works. It does what it is supposed to do, which is allowing us to run and use our computer as we see fit.

You want something a bit more up to date? Move to Mint. If Debian still appeals to you, move to LMDE.

They’re making their bed, they better lie in it when it’s time. Even if it’s on fire. And full of rusty nails.

Are we taking numbers on the AI craze bust already? I say in the next six months, to a year.

I can agree with the assessement on how the company is aiming to bleed dry the market and is aiming to take over the business market. But honest question: what are we to understand by premium?

But even the business market is fickle. The company I work at had a scare recently with a serious security breaching. Nothing was admitted but I suspect the vector of attack was the informal Whatsapp network used to run day to day communications and it’s AI. The installed Microsoft security solutions were as efficient as a collander. I can’t imagine what was leaked. That costs money.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, would you be so kind and repeat after me: abandonware and indie games are the future!

If you can, look for used Lenovo Thinkpads. Those machines are extremely compatible with Linux, out of the box, have good hardware profiles and, if used, can be sources really cheap and are very easily repairable.

I have two Thinkpads running Debian and the machines are brilliant.

The paradox has a lot to it and is mostly misunderstood.

I know of a case where an assault victim got a special device that relayed the proximity of their atacker starting from 3000 meters.

It was paired with the ankle bracelet and it only beeped proximity. No location. If a certain range was breeched, it would relay instantly to authorities, which are mandated to call the bracelet carrier imediatly. No answer/range reduction, immediate victim call/visit/collection.

Thank you.

What?

You have the right to express your opinion as you may please but you’re not entitled to have me respect it nor respect you for it, but I digress.

This isn’t Reddit, sadly, because otherwise I’d give you gold for that comment.

By that logic, when all human labour - and I do mean all of it, with no exception - is no longer necessary, thus no income can be earned by any part, how will people survive? I expect them to be, at least, entitled to move out of the way and silently and peacefully disappear.

It is not an analog, in any measurement.

We are talking about a technology that been prompted, since its inception, as the leap that would render human work unnecessary - which is false under many measurements.

When that failed, it was then repackaged as the technology that would enable any person to do anything: write a book, a song, create the new Mona Lisa, write any program they needed or wanted, etc. And again, it failed.

Any major development was always geared towards solving a concrete, tangible, problem. For AI, every proponent for it is trying to find problems to fix with it.

I don’t care about the promises of AI. I care about the cost of it, now and future. It’s not a hand full of niche applications that are going to impress me. Put it towards research, make it truly useful, in the hands of people capable of forcing it to produce results and audit and validate them. It is not a toy, it is not something that can replace human beings in any measurement, it is not something people should be relegating their autonomy and individuality to, which is happening as we are having this conversation.

No need to reply to this. I’m out. I don’t care for any arguments in defence of AI and it’s potential. I’ve made my choice. Keep to yours.

Have a great one. See you around.

Congratulations. Enjoy it.

It is. It really is. At any point on any other endeavour, someone said it was enough and the costs did not justify the results. Not with this. So, it really is hard to understand.

The AI is a consummer of resources we can not easily dispense that returns nothing of objective and equivalent value.

Fresh words, no quotes.

More palatable now?

That is a false equivalence.

The looms, the automated treshers, the tractor, whatever machine designed to a fullfil a task that displaced human labour wasn’t designed with the objective to render humans useless. There were periods of transition when people hurt, needlessly, if I may say so, but new occupations emerged.

This is not the same.

For the first time, we are faced with a technology that feeds off human achievement to be built and next states it can dispense and completely replace what enabled it to be put together to start. While consuming resources we can not afford to waste and returning nothing of value.