Seafile is not FOSS, as I understand it. But I tried it anyway, since I also found Nextcloud bloated.

In the end I went back to the purest strategy of all: peer-to-peer. My files are synced between devices over the local network using ssh, rsync and unison and never touch an internet server.

Thanks, that is useful. Roughly what I was thinking.

Can someone do a quick explainer of what this move to ARM means for free computing? The prospects for hassle-free installation of alternative OSs? Is it good news or bad?

Completely agree. Training normies to click OK on warnings like this is a no-good terrible idea.

In rc.conf put map f shell -tf $SHELL ~/myscript.sh. When you press f it will launch myscript.sh in a new terminal with the selection as an argument.

man ranger and check shell command for appropriate flags. For example, skip the -t if your script is in turn going to launch a GUI application.

Shell commands can easily be integrated into ranger.

Sure. I personally find cynicism intensely irritating. It’s infectious so it inevitably ends up poisoning everything. Nobody ever solved any problem with cynicism. In fact I’d go further: all the world’s backward societies (i.e. most of them) are characterized by all-pervasive cynicism (“they’re in it for themselves”, “they’re all crooks”, “nothing will ever change”), whereas the successful countries (few in number) are the ones where people have a more optimistic view of others’ motives. Cynicism is so obviously a self-fulfilling prophesy that I struggle to understand why so many choose to indulge it. I’ve heard a theory that it makes people feel better about their own helplessness. Perhaps I’m too logical but I wish people would choose not to wallow in pessimism - after all, nobody can prove anything one way or the other when it comes to the motivations of others. And oddly, most humans tend to trust others that they know personally. Personally don’t see why strangers would somehow be a different variety of human. Rant over.

Cynicism like this is completely unfalsifiable not to mention unproductive.

Exactly.

As usual, the geeks in this forum are completely out of touch with reality. I say that as a Linux user of decades.

Desktop stats matter less than ever because ordinary people do not buy desktop computers any more and will do so even less in the future.

This is reminiscent of Flattr. As are other suggestions here.

The basic principle of Flattr still seems right to me. You pay a monthly sum for all your donations to a third party in escrow. Then the third party redistributes the money according to your instructions, either by means of a tipjar buttons on websites, or a browser add-on, or perhaps just a giant list of checkboxes and sliders.

The major advantage being that the third party deals with the plumbing of payments.

This is just a list. Why on earth is it hosted on Github? Terribly incoherent with its mission.

So now that you’ve stopped OP, what’s your solution?

One time the installer got stuck on my hardware. Never again. Debian deserves a lot of credit but personally I will not go near an OS unless I am certain in advance that the initial installation will go without a hitch.

How much did The Masses pay for what they were using?

There is all but no difference if you use a desktop environment. That’s where the variation is.

All beautifully preached to the choir. Now: how to communicate all this to the unwashed masses who think the web and the internet and Chrome are all the same thing? Serious question.

Good analysis, thanks.

regulation like that is only proposed to hide up other clauses and proposals that are equally bad or even worse - get the public distracted and thinking they made a difference

But IMO this bit was superfluous POV. An alternative theory is that nobody is secretly scheming to do anything, least of all the chaotic EU apparatus, and that most politicians are not experts and they are simply responding to various competing stimuli, as humans do. Notably elections and media hype and lobbyists. Personally I don’t get why so many people attribute to malice what can easily be explained by incompetence, but whatever, I’m in the minority and that’s fine.

Interesting detail about the eID certificates. You’re right that Americans will find this crazy in the way that we Europeans might not. Perhaps Americans are right.

And of course this sort of thing happens every day in authoritarian countries.

This is not a technical problem at all, it’s a political and cultural one.

Quick politics primer. The EU Parliament is not all-powerful. It cannot even propose legislation (yet). The EU is still mostly a confederation so it’s the governments that hold the reins. But the EP has to say yes for anything to pass. And since it is essentially a consultative body, the EP also tends to contain at least a handful of earnest idealists and specialists (usually Germans) who know when to say no, and how to amend legislation. They are often from the Greens-EFA parliamentary group and sometimes from the liberal Renew group. That is likely what happened here, yet again. It is very important for EU citizens to vote for these parties and candidates in EU elections. The next election is coming up in 6 months.

Would love to, but there’s no way I’m using the account that has root access to my mobile computer in order to write random comments on the internet. To me that just seems absolutely screwed up. And I’m not renting a separate phone number, which is the only way to create a properly sandboxed Google account.

So, sorry Google, I’ll let you manage my mobile OS because there’s no easy alternative, but I will not use any of your services or voluntarily give you any information about me on any of your platforms. And of course I will mercilessly block any and all ads I see anywhere. In my case at least, you will be providing your service for literally zero $ with zero prospect of monetization. That’s the price to pay for trying to privatize our digital lives.