The download is the title and what everyone is latching onto, but few are seeing the other problems, like how it secretly installed that model without user acceptance, how it uses obscurity to hide the model, how it will reinstall if you just delete it (fortunately there’s an uninstall process linked in the comments, does that include uninstalling Chrome?). And then how it pretends to be an extra AI thing on the browser but apparently will be used for any searching. Which is more energy use since it isn’t local, it’s just using the weights in storage.

It’s all bad, even if it wasn’t AI. It’s what malware does.

It can be, but it depends on how dependent one is on various applications and sources. I’m in the process of doing such a thing, but I’m taking the slow route so I don’t break everything. Meaning I’m moving one thing at a time off Snap, and then I’ll be closer to a Debian/Mint DE version in the switch over than if I did it right away with so much tied to it being Ubuntu.

For a casual user it may not be that dramatic and just a matter of moving data and learning a new desktop look. I’d still suggest the Debian version of Mint over Debian if they went to Ubuntu for the easy use.

As a Gen-X, I have embraced 6-7 and use it when I can. I appreciate that every generation has its own meme culture. Funny enough, it pisses off the younger kids when I do it. Mission accomplished.

It is. But at least Win7 wasn’t terrible, and it was just a bad promo.

Microsoft then said, “hold my beer” and went Win8 Metro.

MacBook 6,1 Core 2 Duo 2.26 13" White Unibody Late 2009

I got lucky, apparently Apple specs say a max of 4GB like so many of the others, but for some reason this odd motherboard will run 8GB. And I can confirm, 8GB works.

Linux is the way to go if you want to get a few more years out of your hardware.

Not Windows, but I got an almost new laptop out of a MacBook by putting Mint on it (and $15 of more RAM). Its biggest drawback is how much heavier it is than anything new. My next target is jailbreaking an old Chromebook I have.

Because of the two 7s, right? I saw the thumbnail and thought it was neat, but then looked closer and think the small 7 should go away.

MFW I first got my current router and went to set it up and couldn’t find the factory ID and password on it anywhere. Then realized it was on a damn app now. Which was bad enough, but after jumping through all the hoops, I discovered that (to no surprise really) what you can set up is very limited.

Sure I should buy my own router or flash an older one… but then again the last bad storm that fried the router this one replaced, the ISP replaced it at no charge. So… I live with it, I guess.

My spellcheck doesn’t recognize exabyte and zettabyte yet either. Same issue of common use and scale.

As the comic says, it depends. I was going to do DE or MATE for my old hardware, but figured out Cinnamon would run fine. But I knew better than to try Ubuntu. I use it on my main PC that can handle it, but older stuff, no way, it’s got too much going on.

Was running just the 2GB original, original HDD, and LM XFCE, and it “worked”, but it was painful.

I just put Linux Mint Cinnamon on an old MacBook and it’s running pretty well. I had an SSD that I could use and an extra RAM (total of 3GB now), and it made all the difference. Planning to get two 4GB RAM cards to max it out, yay for old memory that’s still cheap.

Audacious isn’t perfect, but it’s far better than the others that I tried. Had been using VLC forever in WIndows, but for whatever reason I kept running into issues that I couldn’t resolve, so began a search for alternatives.

The only huge issue I have is when I add more songs to my music directory, I can’t refresh the existing playlist. I have to delete and add the directory again. Don’t do it a lot, so it’s more inconvenience, and everything else works so much better than other alternatives did.

FWIW, using a shell function is preferred (according to Bash docs) and probably a lot more flexible, and less dangerous. No, actually, anything in Linux can be dangerous.

And while I’m also in the camp of trying to make the Basilisk happy, I doubt it’s going to work.

Default? I think the first thing I did once I settled down with my current setup was find a background of my own liking, not something curated. And it’s all mine; no one else has it.

For those that care, all zero of you, it’s a bunch of frames from a cool star field animation, timed to rotate to the next every few seconds or so. Because I could not find anything that would simply play a video as a background, I made something that worked. If that’s not Linux level, I don’t know what is.

“I’m all for trying new things and experimentation. But I also know to count on techniques that work.” ;)

I am indeed using Gnome. I had uninstalled the Snap LO and found the more current version because of some issues, and I want to say maybe the older one did have a floppy and that’s why it stood out. Or it could be theme-related. So many apps now don’t even have an icon, so I can’t say I’ve seen many that have a different icon than the old save version.

I’m (un)fortunately old enough to remember the green screen terminals, mainly in the university library to look up books, new tech that would replace the still-existing card catalogs. Good breakdown of the wording. A bit parallel with the save icon, although some software has migrated from that, I noticed LibreOffice has a generic down arrow implying it is being downloaded to something, I guess.

I immediately thought, no, terminal. But apparently, console is correct depending on what it’s displaying/being used for?

It works, but it’s a lot slower and clunkier. And looks worse. Probably could improve with some tweaking, but I don’t use its special features and addons that much, and gedit works quite well for me.