Yep. Look at something like the PinePhone. It has hardware switches that can disable camera, microphone and all types of wireless communication, respectively. And no need to degoogle, since it’s not googled in the first place (runs either Manjaro, PostmarketOS, Mobian or whatever you put on there yourself). Only drawbacks: it’s not really cheap for the specs and a little hard to find these days. But there are probably comparable devices out there.

That’s why I recommend mint. You have all the benefits of ubuntu but without the corporate stuff. And flatpak instead of snap.

Wasn’t that one of the main critiques of snap/ubuntu/canonical a few years ago already?

Among my personal dislike for its shade of purple, that has been my primary reason to not recommend ubuntu for a while, at least.

No, HDR can’t make your monitor brighter than it is. But it can take full advantage of the brightness and contrast of modern displays in a way SDR cannot. In almost every case HDR looks better than SDR but brighter and/or more contrasty displays take the most advantage.

In a more technical sense, SDR content is mastered with a peak brightness of 100 nits in mind. HDR is mastered for a peak brightness of 1000 nits, sometimes 2000 nits and the resulting improved contrast.

If you don’t watch movies in HDR on a modern TV, you’re not taking full advantage of its capabilities.

That’s incorrect. While it can be assumed that HDR content supports at least 10bit colour, it is not necessary for monitor or content. The main difference is contrast and brightness. SDR is mastered for a brightness of 100 nits and a fairly low contrast. HDR is mastered for brighnesses of usually 1000 or even 2000 nits since modern displays are brighter and capable of higher contrast and thus can produce a more lifelike picture through the additional information within HDR.

Of course you need a sufficiently bright and/or contrasty monitor for it to make a difference. An OLED screen or displays with a lot of dimming zones would produce the best results there. But even a 350nit cheap TV can look a bit better in HDR.

Well, no one‘s saying Spotifys implementation is any good. But the theory that true randomness doesn’t always feel random still stands true. Most music player/streaming apps implement this in some way. Some better, some worse.

Normal tablets don’t have e-Ink screens and for reading electrophoretic displays are vastly superior to LED/LCD screens.

Some Kindle devices come with a built-in „free“ cellular plan. Maybe it was that?

Second this. Airplane mode is on and books are sideloaded. However, if it hadn’t been a present, I‘d probably have gotten a Tolino (German/European e-reader brand that is identical with kobo) because they support epub directly (and yes I know the Kindle technically does that, too, now but wordwise n stuff only works if you convert them to kfx)

You‘re a step too far again though. The average newbie would insta-panic by the thought of using the terminal. Needing a command to install drivers or to update is already too hard.

Arch based distros like Manjaro, endeavorOS or even SteamOS, for that matter are great (have used manjaro myself in the past until I settled for fedora/nobara) and the AUR can make acquiring software a lot easier. However, the moment something breaks, a newbie will be lost and the Arch Wiki won’t save someone who doesn’t know what to look for in the first place.

If anything, my recommendation for absolute beginners (as long as their hardware isn’t state of the art or they want to game, primarily) would be Mint. It’s easy to set up, has a nifty (and graphical) driver installer, has a default DE that is close enough to windows as to not confuse someone who hasn’t used anything else in their life and also, it shares enough DNA with ubuntu that most tutorials out there work without having shit like snap in there.

Sure but it’s not a rarity that forum answers expect you to be very familiar with linux file structures and terminal commands. If you’re a beginner who runs into an issue (as beginners do), you oftentimes need to find a tutorial and then tutorials that explain the tutorial. It gets even worse if you’re not on a debian/ubuntu based distro (although, to be fair, if you’re a newbie, that’s sorta asking for trouble).

Yea. I like my MacBook and I like macOS (yes, I know, shame on me). But in a few years, when Apple eventually stops supporting it, I can just put Linux on it and keep using it (or give it to a relative who just needs a working computer). It’s good hardware and in true Apple fashion, it will probably outlast its software. I also have an old Core 2 Duo unibody macbook laying around and while it is possible to put the latest macOS on (thanks hackintosh community), Linux is a much better experience and the MacBook is sturdier and has a better trackpad and keyboard than most new laptops, even many that are much more expensive.

He didn’t even slam it. Smh my head.

I wouldn’t recommend Intel CPUs (at least the last two gens) either but if all that matters to you in a GPU is hardware encoding (quality or codec support), like for a Jellyfin server, Intel ARC is unbeatable.

• 120€ if you want the disc drive. That’s 920€ total. A new PS5 Slim with disc drive is less than 500€ and I’ve seen used PS5 Phat with disc drive on ebay for less than 350€.

Almost double the price for a bit nicer raytracing, 2TB and higher framerates in the very few games that don’t support at least 60fps is a very hefty asking price.

For 900€ you can get a pretty good gaming PC. If you buy some parts used, you can even get a really good rig for that price. You might just need to wait a few years until the latest sony exclusives make it to PC eventually.

When I‘m on an apple device (my phone or work mac) I use Safari. On any other device: Firefox. And if the website doesn’t work properly in either one of those, ungoogled chromium.

Ah, so you‘re one of those people that would be well at home at lemmygrad. And what fate are you talking about? Not getting sued?

Where did I say that find it good that they got sued or lost their appeal? I just said that the reason why they lost the appeal is because according to the law they’re bound to, what they did was wrong. And maybe they should’ve left that to a platform that enjoys a little more immunity from said law, because there are plenty of those. It was stupid of them. They painted an unnecessary target on their back that doesn’t help their cause and I‘d prefer them not to have to shut down at some point because I’m all for the Internet archive archiving anything and everything. They should’ve stayed a legitimate library and everything would have been fine and would have served their cause sufficiently well.

Which was nice of them, but that doesn’t mean they should’ve done that, especially in the eyes of the law. (Also, if you’re after free ebooks, why are you pirating them on archive.org instead of libgen?)

The commenter I responded to originally seemed confused/surprised by it, though.