The article mentions that the author had a negative experience with Void Linux, that it was missing programs in its repository. If you considered it, give it a try anyway. Void is fast and ridiculously stable, even more so given it's a rolling release distro (so often has very new program versions). And in contrast to the author, I was impressed with the broad range of the package system - he might have had a bit of bad luck with the selection.
I've found a very comfortable home on Void Linux for nearly a decade at this point, and wouldn't consider any other distro for desktop use. I find Void to be rock-solid stable and relentlessly simple.
The author of TFA hopped from Mint -> Debian -> Bazzite -> Fedora -> Void -> Artix, so Void is an extremely obvious outlier here.
Aside from Void, every other distro he tried was either a newbie-friendly desktop distro (Mint, Debian, Fedora, Bazzite), or "Arch, but easier, with an installer" (Artix).
Bad luck with Void's package selection is fair enough, but I'm not sure what he meant by "driver compatibility was a big issue" - Void uses an upstream kernel and driver availability should be roughly the same anywhere.
He's using a Ryzen APU on desktop so graphics drivers shouldn't have been an issue there. The MacBook had problems with Broadcom Wi-Fi drivers on Artix(!), but I'd wager this would affect all distros out of the box, and Void has the Broadcom drivers[0] available as well.
It's frustrating that he doesn't explicitly mention what he couldn't find drivers for on Void. I assume it was Broadcom Wi-Fi and he didn't enable the nonfree repository. In fairness, Void's docs don't cover any Broadcom quirks so maybe this isn't as discoverable as it should be.
Seconding this. I was impressed by Void linux stability and speed: xbps (with xtools) might be the fastest and most powerful package manager I've *ever* used.
Sure, Void doesn't have the endless options of Arch+AUR for packages, but it had everything I needed. Even the well-maintained, latest versions of less common software, like Nim compiler.
The author might also missed that Void has a non-free repository, that you have to install for stuff like proprietary drivers, DRM and Steam.
It seems to be built into the credit card terminals. So it's a visa thing, not on the shop.
I had that with very small shops in non-touristy areas of Mexico where it was absolutely clear to not be a scam attempts by the shops owner. They had no idea what the terminal asked.
Their payment processor (the people they rent the machine off of) offers them this oppurtunity to 'unlock hidden revenue for merchants'[1][2][3] and they are happy to do this.
I don't think parent is claiming that the shop owner is trying to scam someone. But these prompts have been around for at least 15 years, I'm also sure about that, this isn't new by any measure. And yeah, also came across shop owners who don't know what it is about, and then you have to chose.
Makes sense that shop owners in non-touristy areas haven't seen them before, as you'll only see that when the card has a default currency that differs from the default currency of the terminal.
On the other hand, almost every merchant and waiter in Spain told me, when handing me the card terminal, to select "local currency" (decline the first swindle attempt) then "don't convert" (decline the second swindle attempt). There's obviously some required workflow where they must pass the terminal to the customer, but they are wise to the payment gateway's trick to extract additional value from the transaction. They don't want their customer bilked, or to take the reputational damage when the customer leaves an angry review.
So if your Mexican merchants "don't know" what their terminal says? Either you were their first foreigner, or they're useful idiots, or they know.
I just think they genuinely don't know. I was years into travelling before I learned about this 'trick'.
For my part, I'd just always assumed the charge would be ultimately converted by my bank in any case. Seems obvious now I look back, but I honestly just didn't think about the trick.
Just as an example that gives evidence for this, sometimes you'll go to the same place multiple times and the norm is they ask but occasionally someone won't. So it's not a policy.
I presume the people who don't just don't know about it, don't want to bother me and aren't aware it will make a difference.
He could have merely been the first to do the math and bring it up. I could easily see most tourists overlooking this sort of thing, or not mentioning it because they're already accustomed to it.
When LCDs arrived it was not only greybeards not liking them. I certainly wasn't old enough for that title - but for a while, CRT screens were just so much better! Those early panels (at least the ones I saw) were horrible, sooo slow, totally muted colors and minimal viewing angles.
We are missing the context how the statement was said in the interview. The CEO is new and not used to the scrutiny that position brings, especially for Mozillas CEO given their purported ideals. It is quite possible he said this as something absurd -> "If making money was our only goal we would have some other options. We could for example disable all adblockers, to get more money from our advertising sponsor Google, at least 150 million USD. But we can not and won't do that, as it would feel completely off-mission for everyone and harm us long-term. So we always keep our mission in mind." Then the journalists shortens it to the blip in the verge article and the reaction twists it around a bit more, assuming disabling adblockers was on the table as a serious suggestion.
Or it could be it really was on the table since they just entered the advertising business and think AI is the future of Mozilla, a "fuck those freeloaders", heartfelt from the Porsche driving MBAs in Mozilla's management. Who knows. But it's a choice which interpretation one assumes.
This could be a good alternative to Minuum when mixed together. The single line was great in theory, but in practice I often preferred the regular keyboard layout. Maybe the autopredict did not work all that well, at least with the multiple languages I mixed then? Going to two lines might improve it, and devices are bigger now than back then.
Some old Galaxy phone for me I think. And then I used it a bit on an LG G3. Only regular app I ever bought (the one other purchase was a game, https://egamebook.com/knights/).
But it must have been great for the small Nexus 4.
The article mentions that the Club3D adapters don't exist anymore (=the popular ones), only off-brand alternatives. VRR is not officially supported via adapters, a big problem for a gaming device.
I have it, it does not. Well, it may. It depends on the firmware you install on the cable. Depending on the firmware, different things will be broken. I tried them all. There's no version that will consistently support 2160p@120 and 4:4:4/RGB and HDR and VRR, and without random handshake issues.
Although the SFOS community did express some interest in the 3.5 mm jack in the polls earlier, there's no headphone jack. The expected device sales volume probably would not cover the added engineering cost from such modifications to the mainboard reference design at the announced price point.
Some time ago I also thought that no 3.5mm jack is a deal-breaker, but I bought super cheap jack-usbc adapter that is 5cm long and it works pretty well.
I haven't tried a USB-C to 3.55mm adapter but your experience heartens me.
Headphone jack has been a hard line for me. Having recently moved into the world of wireless charging (I keep a phone 5-7 years and just missed wireless charging being normalized on my last phone purchase back in 2020) I think using the USB port for headphone is finally visible.
I spend a lot of the day with my headphones on and the phone on the wireless charging puck. Not being forced to choose between charging and headphones changes the equation.
Correct me if I'm wrong but those cables must include a DAC to function properly and so usually have a tiny kinda crappy one in them, right?
In this post headphone jack world I use a fiio Bluetooth/USB DAC that's really good quality. But it's about the size of two ipod nanos stacked on top of each other.
>those cables must include a DAC to function properly and so usually have a tiny kinda crappy one in them, right?
FWIW, audiophiles were very impressed with the measured performance of the €10 Apple USB-C to 3.5mm adapter and its DAC. The Google one is likely good too.
reply