#pop os

[anubiarts]

mom said i'm allowed 2 nerd posts per month so uhh here we go

cosmic desktop (an environment for linux) is pretty nice

[31suitboots]

small rant time:

i got my computer used off ebay. system76 galpro for 200 bucks, came with 2 chargers and guy was super helpful, booted up popos, works like a dream now and my only complaint is battery life, but i think that's an issue with the age of the thing. probably i'll just have to replace said battery.

anyway, when i first turned it on, i didn't know shit about booting up a new system and the seller couldn't remember his password so after hours and hours of searching how to get into it, how to reset it, maybe doing something physical with the machine, i decided to post on i believe stack exchange. i didnt think i would get an answer because of how specific the problem was, but some mod just locked my post because it "wasn't specific enough", whatever that means. dude was kind of a jerk about it too, i posted my question as clearly as i could without having interacted with linux before at all and dude said something like "you can't just say 'I need help!' without giving context" like my guy. i did give context. i told you everything i knew and you gave me a vague ass answer and locked the post.

anyway after that i went to reddit (only time ever, immediately deleted account) and got an answer in like 45 minutes. literally he could have just said "you need a thumbdrive. get a thumbdrive, download desired os, boot up BIOS and select drive" and been done with it but no so im never touching a programming forum again i guess. dude even found the reddit post and decided to give the exact same vague and unhelpful answer while pointing out that i had crossposted my question

[alison-kira]

Xenia

[systemdeez]

Using pop os is kinda like micro dosing on ubuntu.

[amalgamasreal]

On Personal InfoSec

Been awhile since I've had one of these posts but I figure with all that's going on in the world it's time to make another one of these posts and get some stuff out there for people. A lot of the information I'm going to go over you can find here:

Ad-Free Privacy Tool/Service Recommendations - Privacy Guides

A complete list of the privacy tools, services, software, and hardware recommended by the Privacy Guides community.

So if you'd like to just click the link and ignore the rest of the post that's fine, I strongly recommend checking out the Privacy Guides.

Browsers:

There's a number to go with but for this post going forward I'm going to recommend Firefox. I know that the Privacy Guides lists Brave and Safari as possible options but Brave is Chrome based now and Safari has ties to Apple. Mullvad is also an option but that's for your more experienced users so I'll leave that up to them to work out.

Browser Extensions:

uBlock Origin: content blocker that blocks ads, trackers, and fingerprinting scripts. Notable for being the only ad blocker that still works on Youtube.

Privacy Badger: Content blocker that specifically blocks trackers and fingerprinting scripts. This one will catch things that uBlock doesn't catch but does not work for ads.

Facebook Container: "but I don't have facebook" you might say. Doesn't matter, Meta/Facebook still has trackers out there in EVERYTHING and this containerizes them off away from everything else.

Bitwarden: Password vaulting software, don't trust the password saving features of your browsers, this has multiple layers of security to prevent your passwords from being stolen.

ClearURLs: Allows you to copy and paste URL's without any trackers attached to them.

VPN:

Note: VPN software doesn't make you anonymous, no matter what your favorite youtuber tells you, but it does make it harder for your data to be tracked and it makes it less open for whatever network you're presently connected to.

Mozilla VPN: If you get the annual subscription it's ~$60/year and it comes with an extension that you can install into Firefox.

Proton VPN: Has easily the most amount of countries serviced, can take cash payments, and does offer port forwarding.

Email Provider:

Note: By now you've probably realized that Gmail, Outlook, and basically all of the major "free" e-mail service providers are scraping your e-mail data to use for ad data. There are more secure services that can get you away from that but if you'd like the same storage levels you have on Gmail/Outlook.com you'll need to pay.

Proton Mail: Secure, end-to-end encrypted, and fairly easy to setup and use. Offers a free option up to 1gb

Tuta: Secure, end-to-end encrypted, been around a very long time, and offers a free option up to 1gb.

Email Client:

Thunderbird if you're on Windows or Linux

Apple Mail if you're on macOS

Cloud Storage:

Proton Drive: Encrypted cloud storage from the same people as Proton Mail.

Tresorit: Encrypted cloud storage owned by the national postal service of Switzerland. Received MULTIPLE awards for their security stats.

Peergos: decentralized and open-source, allows for you to set up your own cloud storage, but will require a certain level of expertise.

Microsoft Office Replacements:

LibreOffice: free and open-source, updates regularly, and has the majority of the same functions as base level Microsoft Office.

OnlyOffice: cloud-based, free, and open source.

Chat Clients:

Note: As you've heard SMS and even WhatsApp and some other popular chat clients are basically open season right now. These are a couple of options to replace those.

Signal: Provides IM and calling securely and encrypted, has multiple layers of data hardening to prevent intrusion and exfil of data.

Molly (Android OS only): Alternative client to Signal. Routes communications through the TOR Network.

Briar: Encrypted IM client that connects to other clients through the TOR Network, can also chat via wifi or bluetooth.

Now for the last bit, I know that the majority of people are on Windows or macOS, but if you can get on Linux I would strongly recommend it. pop_OS, Ubuntu, and Mint are super easy distros to use and install. They all have very easy to follow instructions on how to install them on your PC and if you'd like to just test them out all you need is a thumb drive to boot off of to run in demo mode.

If you game through Steam their Proton emulator in compatibility mode works wonders, I'm presently playing a major studio game that released in 2024 with no Linux support on it and once I got my drivers installed it's looked great. There are some learning curves to get around, but the benefit of the Linux community is that there's always people out there willing to help.

I hope some of this information helps you and look out for yourself, it's starting to look scarier than normal out there.

[felsecyan]

Linux got me so fucked up I'm talking about my computer and monitor like they're living creatures

[bethelonging]

some people will assume youre such a nerrrrd when you say u use linux but they dont really know u cant read documentation, remember basic commands, close vim or fix sound problems in less than 3h for your life

[aces-acquired]

Okay so I installed Pop!_OS and I like it so far except for thr fact that even though I added Chinese as an input method for my computer, it's just working like a usual English keyboard it's not letting me type in Chinese at all

I tried the one fix I found for it online and it Did Not Work so I guess I'm gonna have to do more digging to get this to work, but apparently this isn't an uncommon problem with East Asian languages on Pop!_OS

Anybody know a good fix? (That's not switching to another distro)