I’ve used Little Snitch on macOS, but I agree that a closed-source blob won’t fly on Linux. OpenSnitch exists, though I haven’t tried that one.

Can I just do an apt remove —purge systemd-ageverificationd and call it a day, or do I need to edit /etc/systemd/ageverificationd/birthday.conf and call it a day?

I don’t agree with this law, but having an age verification API as an open-source modular component is the best way to do it. Build in privacy controls and permissions so you know what’s being sent, where, and when. Make sure we know to edit $HOME/.config/systemd/ageverificationd/birthday.conf whenever we want (yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if systemd handled this, too).

Don’t forget the off switch and don’t give it unnecessary dependencies. Let me be able to install it if I need it (spoilers: I won’t) and if you include it by default, let me be able to remove it without removing the whole GUI.

I wound up switching to Debian. It’s stable. It works. It lets me tinker and upgrade some packages without compromising the whole system.

My only gripe is that OS upgrades are a manual process. I miss Ubuntu’s do-release-upgrade command, though following a process isn’t hard.

Agreed. I use Secure Boot on my Linux systems with my own keys. Let’s not confuse it with Restricted Boot, which is awful.

Nah, he Base4017’d it. That’s Base64 plus all the emojis. It’s actually quite efficient.

Good question. It seems like Debian has been speeding up a bit. The software is still a bit older, but it’s not too far behind compared to some other Debian releases. I switched and it’s been rock solid, despite me running a Trixie Backports system.

Agreed! Though give me the backports any day.

I’ll second this. I’ve got tons of FLACs. I let PlexAmp do the transcoding in the background.

Because I never learned Bash scripting, for whatever reason, and WSL wasn’t yet available to load on my work PC at the time.

Windows doesn’t make you oil the machine. Your move, nerd. </sarcasm>

However, with macOS 26 (Tahoe) being the final version for Intel-based Macs, Rosetta 2 will be on the chopping block afterwards.

Starting with macOS 28, Apple said that only a limited version of Rosetta 2 will remain available for older games that rely on Intel-based frameworks

Have you tried the fork VSCodium? It strips out some of the telemetry and makes it more FOSS.

I owned one for a while. It was great. But Apple will eventually drop Intel support and these can then become well-built Linux laptops.

This is a compile-time option that will tell the compiler to optimize for the CPU in your computer, rather than any CPU.

By default, the x86_64 kernel will build itself so that it can boot and run on any 64-bit Intel or AMD processor. This means it may have to ignore or check for newer instruction sets like (let’s say, totally at random) AVX512:

if (CPU supports AVX512)
    do_efficient_avx512_thing (a, b, c)
else
    a = something()
    b = some_nonavx512_prep_work()
    c = some_other_old_way_of_doing_things()
    do_nonavx512_thing (a, b, c)

So, if you have an AVX512-capable CPU, it still has to check before using that instruction. Plus, your compiled kernel will be slightly larger because it needs to contain both ways of doing the thing.

Using this option tells the compiler to compile code optimized for your current processor:

do_efficient_avx512_thing (a, b, c)

This is a gross oversimplication. The compiler will also take things into consideration such as instruction sets, scheduling, core and thread counts, big and small cores, and more.

But the tl;dr is that optimized code is smaller, faster, and maybe a teensy bit more power efficient.

The downside? If you try to boot this optimized code on an older CPU (or rarely, a newer CPU), it will eventually say “illegal instruction” and crash.

I second Waypipe. It tunnels over SSH, and while you have to run a command for it, it’s still much easier than X forwarding.

Processors of that age still exist in special builds, like tougher ones for automotive use with lots of heat and vibration, or radiation-hardened ones for space use where you can’t dispatch a technician. But for consumers use, they’re long dead.

Another KiTTY user! Can you share that setting?

Does CB radio allow data emissions? I thought it was only AM and SSB voice.

Could you send ePub files over ham radio? Let’s forget about TCP-IP mesh networking like AREDN for now. That’s too easy. Let’s look at radio protocols. D-Star can run at 128 Kbps on the 23 cm band. That’s not too common. Drop down to HF and you’re looking at 9 Kbps via PACTOR-IV.

In comparison, landline dial-up modems topped out at around 56 Kbps.

Now, I’ve seen ePub files around 1-2 MB, but that’s with cover art, images, embedded fonts, and all that fun stuff. With enough patience, that can work. But, strip out all that, leaving behind plain text and XML, and you’ve got something much more manageable that can be sent relatively quickly.

I can’t speak for Spain, but in the U.S., the FCC recently removed most symbol rate restrictions, so we might be able to squeeze out a little more speed.