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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • Most as in SteamOS + Arch = 49.25%.

    It’s interesting how fragmented the Linux user base is in the survey. Excluding steam deck from the equation, the visible versions of Ubuntu are getting roughly 18.6%, Arch is getting like 14% of the desktop and Mint 21.3 getting 8.5%. The Flatpak version does put confusion into the data (hiding 11% of desktop versions) and the missing “other” 22.94% group accounts for 39% of the desktops so there may be lots of other version fragments hidden away, but regardless no single distro version seem to dominate.

    It’d be nice to see the whole list.




  • In this situation I’d save a copy of the sheet to my phone in a standard format and use a non google app. The file itself can be backed up to on line storage and remain accessible from multiple devices but you remove it from googles walled garden.

    On android if you want open source then Collabra is a full office suite based on LibreOffice. Alternatively LibreOffice Viewer is the official libre app - ok for viewing files but with an experimental mode for editing (not really ready for editing yet).

    WPS Office is a free office suite with add or paid version which has a good reputation.

    Microsoft Office is also an option.

    If you want to stay with google sheets and just view the file offline then try saving a copy to your phone in a different format and view that with the Google spreadsheet app (if it can still do that). But I’d take the pop up as a sign that its time to move on from googles shitty products.





  • Doesn’t really matter if you see the survey or not - valve can validate their data other ways. They easily know how many clients connect from each OS and what proportions as that’s fundamental to the client itself. The survey fills in the rest of the data like which kernel, distros, and hardware.

    All this would do is maybe weight some of the answers on which flavour of Linux and which hardware is being used in the favour of proactive users. But really good survey data relies on being representative and that is bes achieved by large random samples rather than people saying “count me!”


  • If you look into the data Steam OS Holo s listed and it is 45.3%. Arch separately is second at 7.9% and then third is the Flatpak installs across all Linux versions at 6%.

    The changes are more difficult to interpret as Linux is growing overall so changes between Linux distros are difficult. For example a small decline in overall share may still represent an increase in total numbers. While Steam OS is up another 3% points, other distros combined are up more - Ubuntu and PopOS combined are up 5% points. That suggests the Linux growth is split between Steam Deck and PC users rather than purely one or the other dominating.


  • Yeah wishful thinking but also a bit reassuring that this is then a meaningful if small shift. People are choosing Linux via steam decks or personally, and its been enabled via proton and wine rather than necessarily people fleeing win 11.

    I do think win 11 changes contribute to people trying Linux more but I think it is Linux that is keeping people that is what has changed. I don’t see some huge move to Linux though - just its growing faster as it supports gaming well and is increasingly easier to use and maintain (which has been a long trend). But win11 being increasingly anti user can’t be a bad think for Linux long term.


  • Yes and no.

    Apple used to be something of a design innovator which the rest of the market would follow. It has this reputation for creating product categories that didn’t exist. That’s not quite true and is rewriting history, what it was good at was design.

    What it did was take a product and design a high quality cutting edge of that and make bank. It started with Mp3 players - there were many of them before the iPod but the iPod did very well because it was a good design with some nice features. Then it made the iPod Touch - which again wasn’t the first but was by far the best and really a mini ipad.

    The iPhone wasn’t the first touch screen phone, but it was a huge leap in usability and power and they did extremely well out of that. The ipad wasn’t the first tablet but again it was a huge leap in usability and design and they did very well. The imac and later mac books were attractive designs rather than innovative.

    Now there isn’t really any areas left for them to work that strategy on. The Mp3 player, the phone, the ipad - they were obvious product categories that existed but were far away from what they could be.

    VR is the remaining obvious tech frontier - but the difference is the technology isn’t quite there yet. It’s obvious what the ultimate VR device should be - a light weight, high fidelity unit that immersed you. Other manufacturers are either making PC tethered devices with high fidelity or mobile devices with low fidelity,as the tech isn’t quite economical or right for the sweet spot.

    Apple Vision Pro is a gamble on trying to secure that sweet spot. It’s not intended to do well currently, it’s intended to build up the manufacturing supply chain which should bring down the cost over time. Vision 2 or 3 will what they’re hoping takes off. It’s a new spin on their old strategy.

    Most of what Apple does now though is just release fresh spins of its current products. They don’t innovate but it’s hard to when there isn’t much left to improve on those product categories. All they can do is make the devices more powerful and lighter, and compete with companies who have now learned all the tricks and offer similar products for cheaper.

    Vision may or may not win the VR wars. Otherwise there isn’t really much else for Apple to go in consumer electronics. Now it is focused on “services” - selling apps, selling media - and organically growing it’s user base. Big leaps in consumer electronics probably won’t come until there is a big innovation in battery technology - that’s the holy grail of tech at the moment.


  • I’m not sure how I feel about this news story.

    On the one side, it’s good to make sure people are aware of the limitations of secure email providers. However on the other the article almost reads as of this should be a surprise to people?

    I use Proton mail and pay for my account. I don’t pay for anonyminity - I pay for privacy. They are two very different things.

    The article talks about Opsec (operational security) and they’re right - if you need anonyminity then don’t use your personal apple email as a recovery address. That is a flaw in the user approach and expectations that unencrypted data held by Proton is also “secure”. Your basic details and your IP address are going to be recorded and available to law enforcement. Use a VPN or Tor to access the service and use another untraceable email for recovery, and pay via crypto if you want true anonymity. And even then there are other methods of anonymous or untraceable secure email that may be better than Proton mail (such as self hosted).

    But for most users like myself, if you’re not looking for anonyminity then Proton is fine as is. My email address is my name and I use it to keep my emails secure and not snooped on by Google etc.

    Proton advertises itself as private, secure and encrypted. It does not claim to offer anonymity.





  • No. I was on Facebook when I was in my early 20s but I found it hollow and vapid; everyone being fake, showing off and pretending for their feeds. I also didn’t like how much data Facebook/meta was harvesting so I deleted my account. I haven’t missed it and it’s been over 15years.

    The only social media I use is Lemmy (previously reddit), and that is anonymous and separate from my life - way better than the fake shit on Facebook.

    Instagram, Tiktok etc - it’s all fake and narcissistic, influencers are just shills, and the companies themselves are just stealing your data and advertising at you the entire time.

    Fuck social media, it’s the surge of our age.


  • I am using Proton Mail, paid account, after having moved from Gmail.

    I like it; it’s private and secure, and I like the web interface and the new android app. To use mail clients like Thunderbird you have to install an app called Proton Bridge - it’s basically a dedicated VPN to ensure your email communication is kept secure when communicating between their servers and your client. I’ve had no problems when I tried it on windows, but I did have issues on Linux with the app forgetting my credentials and forcing me to start from scratch; each time it starts from scratch it downloads your whole mailbox which is frustrating. I’m on KDE and I think it’s to do with the Kwallet and PGP. It seems to be working now but tbh I use the web interface mainly in linux, and the android app on my phone.

    I have no regrets using proton mail, and I would recommend it. I didn’t have problems with the old android app, but the new one is good and seems to address other peoples experiences of slowness previously.




  • This is not shrinkflation.

    440ml is a UK variant. No one has a confirmed explanation for its existence alongside 500ml, but it’s been around for decades.

    However 440ml of water would be 0.44kg which is just under one pound imperial weight (0.45kg). Presumably the fluid plus the aluminium can would weigh about 1lb which may explain the odd volume measure (given transport costs are often by weight and possibly even how customs costs may have used to work?).