halcyoncmdr

One of several open source projects they’re helping fund happens to be run by a person like that. They’re funding is because of the open source project, but some people are very vocal that they’d rather the project not exist at all, and post about it every chance they get.

It’s like how some vegans can’t help but tell you loudly and at every opportunity that they’re vegan. Or some of the more insufferable Linux users in general. Venn diagram is probably a near circle with that linux group actually.

FOSS is a pretty small community in the grand scheme, if you avoided any project run by an objectionable individual, you couldn’t run much of anything.

There’s been plenty of posts about this particular issue all over if you go looking for it. I’d recommend doing your own research on whether you have a problem with it, and not rely on just a couple random commenters here, myself included.

Yeah, they’re not the cheapest but that’s because of their goals.

Designing with reparability and upgradeability in mind means more bespoke parts which cost more versus existing component assemblies in the market. That means more costly tooling and development, with smaller production runs than say a company like HP or Dell (which also costs more).

They actually sell the components and parts at reasonable pricing, and more importantly… designed with end user repairs in mind. So instead of everything being soldered to the main oard, different components are on separate subboards that can be replaced or upgraded separately. And include easy repair guides, a screwdriver in the box, and even extra screws pre installed in the chassis when you inevitably lose one.

Where possible, newer hardware they release can still be used on older models. Sometimes working 100%, sometimes with some limited capability depending on older system limitations. For instance, they just updated the 16" model and added an RTX 5070 GPU option, which you can purchase separately and pop into your old Framework 16 without needing to get a whole new system. Likewise, the same with the new mainboard/CPU in your old chassis. Or the new Laptop 13 2.8K Touchscreen which can be installed in every previous Laptop 13 model other than the Chromebook.

Very few laptop manufacturers get close to that kind of repairability and upgradeability, and that does come with a cost.

All of my self-hosted systems are on a TrueNAS system and using the built-in app system (basically docker). It notifies me when they’re needing updates, and has a single click update process for everything. I just login weekly to see if the button is yellow, then check on it like 15 minutes later to see if anything failed to update. Yeah they’re all on the same hardware, which is probably bad, but nothing there is strictly necessary, it’s all just media stuff and for fun.

The one service that is separate is Pangolin on a DigitalOcean droplet. I just handle that manually when it says there’s an update. Still effectively just docker, but no easy button.

I could automate these more, but I would spend more time setting it up than I would save since it only takes me a couple minutes maybe once a week.

No standard, no custom government specific distro designed for the use case and ensuring stability and consistency… every department can choose their own.

So similar fragmentation that underpins the issues Linux has with consumer confusion when trying to switch. There are too many options all with weird quirks that isn’t an issue for technical people, but is impossible for the average person to wade through to find good options for them.

Maybe they’ll specify more in the future, but at the moment it looking more like expecting each large government department to make fundamental decisions on their core IT infrastructure on their own, as opposed to a dedicated and specialized team with experience.

A lot of industrial and commercial hardware using Windows was abandoned by the manufacturer decades ago. There is a lot of hardware that still needs Windows XP to control, some even stuck on Windows 98. As aging hardware breaks it is becoming harder to find replacements. For a lot of this, the software to run it is so focused that emulation layers cause issues.

Not exactly. It sort of depends on your interpretation of events and times.

When the original “Google” turned into Alphabet to split the core Google stuff like search and advertising from all the other side stuff like CapitalG, Waymo, etc. So the entire “Google” corporation as it was, turned into Alphabet. The new Alphabet motto is “Do the right thing.”

The “new” Google subsidiary formed under Alphabet still used the phrase in its Code of Conduct. In 2018 they removed it from the preface, but it’s still the last thing mentioned in the Code of Conduct.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_be_evil

No, trackballs are a separate thing. And their design is usually better at keeping debris out of the ball meaning less maintenance even though it’s exposed literally all of the time.

Most reasonablemice now support wither a 2.4GHz dongle, or Bluetooth. If your device has WiFi it almost certainly has Bluetooth support. So many motherboards are coming with built in wifi now, as do a lot of prebuilt towers. For most usage a Bluetooth connection is just fine.

The mouse I have is only wireless for the “less drag while gaming” aspect but the cable is actually super nice, so I dont even mind the cable… I just leave it plugged in now.

This is what I do. The mouse is plugged in most of the time but if I’m playing a game or working in like Photoshop, it comes off for the freedom of movement.

On the keyboard side it’s nice if your setup has you moving the keyboard to store it when not using the computer, eating when watching media, etc.

the confounding tribalism behind its modularity. options are great, but they also bring out the absolute worst in many of us.

Exactly. Parts of the Linux community, and FOSS in general, are extremely hostile. And for some new users, that’s the first (and probably only) impression they get when they have an issue trying it out for the first time. It’s a very small minority, but they are loud and aggressive, and are not ostracized by the community nearly enough.

Telling a new user that is going out of their way to figure out how to find and post an issue or feature request to Github, telling them to just fix it themselves isn’t a solution, it’s just being a dick. 99.9% of this planet doesn’t know how to code, just because they’re making a post on GitHub doesn’t mean they know how to code. Especially not at a level to fix an issue like that.

Not really. You’re not messing with the hard drive itself at all. A hard drive is a sealed component. Unless you’re taking an extremely strong magnet near it, dripping it, or trying to directly inject power to the pins on the drive, there is no risk of damaging it.

You’re messing with the plastic shell and maybe a small board that handles low power conversion and the LED. These are very simple things.

This is a standard drive in an external enclosure. They’re not opening the drive itself, just the shell around it.

Backup? Psh… That’s what the lab is for.

Maybe they’re referring to playing remotely from their home computer? That often doesn’t require a local install.