I wanted to do some stress testing on a gaming laptop a while ago and many people recommended OCCT. The laptop was still running Windows at the time, so I tried it and it seems like a good tool. It tests the CPU, RAM, GPU and power supply. I wasn’t able to find an equivalent in Linux.

I am fascinated by your user friendliness experiment and I often daydream about conducting one myself. I would be interested in reading a more detailed write-up of the advantages and disadvantages of each option.

For Debian, did you consider setting up unattended upgrades?

Would you consider adding an RHEL/CentOS derivative such as AlmaLinux to the mix? The current version of AlmaLinux is supposed to be supported until 2032. The EPEL repository brings the software selection a little bit closer to Fedora.

I love Linux and I think a lot of my non-technical family members would benefit from it, but I am not as brave as you. The danger with messing around with someone’s computer is that you are basically taking ownership of all tech problems the person may run into. It’s like the “You break it, you buy it” rule. The person may seek help from another tech geek, but as soon as that geek finds out they’re dealing with a “weird” Linux system, they’re going to run away from it. You are effectively volunteering to be 24x7 on-call tech support for the people whose laptops you’ve installed Linux on.

APM is Advanced Power Management. I’m having trouble finding an official explanation for it, but it basically allows the hard drive to park the head when the OS thinks it’s idle. My hard drive makes a loud “click” every time that happens. APM is too aggressive, so my hard drive is constantly clicking unless I disable APM.

Recently, I’ve been changing distros about once a year. These are the things I install every time:

• hdparm - I use this to disable APM on my HDD which makes annoying sounds when it’s enabled. (Yes, my computer is old and still uses an HDD as the system drive.)
• KeePassXC - My preferred password manager.
• VeraCrypt - My external drives are encrypted with this.
• Joplin - I store my setup notes in here.
• Lutris/Steam/Wine - I’m a gamer.

As for the config files, I always start fresh.

I will never forget the time I saw my classmate clean his glasses by licking them. It wasn’t a small lick. The lenses were covered in his saliva afterwards. 🤮

TIL there’s an organization called Mopria that develops universal printing standards. As a computer geek who works in the tech industry, I’m surprised I’ve never heard of this before.

FYI, the translation feature is available in the current stable version (v117), but it’s disabled by default. To enable it, go to about:config and set browser.translations.enable to true. I tried it earlier on a German website and it worked well.

Reference: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/27/how-to-enable-firefoxs-native-translate-feature-in-firefox-117/

I used the credit on a Google One subscription. It gives me additional Google Drive space which I can share with my family.

I’ve been interested in the Fediverse for a long time but didn’t have any reason to jump into it because the applications I was aware of did not appeal to me. If I don’t use Twitter and Instagram, why would I be interested in Mastodon and Pixelfed? This all changed when Reddit announced their API change. Reddit is the only social media site I use, so Lemmy seems like the perfect reason to jump in.