Sure there’s an outlier. A record-breaking “oldest” dog older than-- Nope

My username comes from “pemptagonist,” the fifth most important character in a play (after protagonist, deuteragonist, etc). I thought it was funny, but maybe there’s something in that because I don’t trust my luck one bit.

Maybe, but if so, I bet it’s negligible. When it comes to discovery, there’s so many places I’d look for FOSS projects before going GH. Except maybe to check awesome-lists, but you don’t have to be on GH to be linked on one (and I’ve seen them popping up on Codeberg). GH’s design in general doesn’t seem to promote stumbling across new projects. Even if I’m wrong, one could always mirror on GH.

As for contributing, if someone is willing to go though the trouble to contribute, I’d hope they’d go through the trouble of signing up on a new platform. Maybe there’s a non-zero number of contributors who would not, and that’s an unacceptable for some projects. There’s also potential for more contributors if they trust a project is living FOSS principles and less at-risk of vender lock-in. The fosstodon thread shows people care about where a project lives. The arguments in favor of staying on GH seemed mostly inertia-based.

You’re right. I don’t mean to minimize the effort required. The effort required is a big part of the argument in favor of moving, or at least aspiring to move to a platform with more open and interoperable values. I can’t imagine MS will make that transition any easier as time goes on despite forgejo and others best efforts. I’ve no problem with an OSS projects using GH but I’d hope they’d take the risk more seriously in a discussion about it.

Edit: I also don’t think the effort is wasted or insurmountable. Regarding broken links, I’ve stumbled across many projects that have changed their GH repo to a mirror and link to their new platform. And RE logistical v philosophical reasons, I consider avoiding vender lock-in to be risk management and part of a project’s long-term logistics.

I agree, and I can forgive OSS projects still using it, but if they’re inviting a discussion about it I’d hope they’d be more sensitive that:

1. github is not static
2. being on a Microsoft platform carries a significant risk (embrace, extend, extinguish).
3. There are plenty of successful OSS hosted elsewhere and each one helps the whole system grow.

They seem to think github’s PR, CI, etc features are head-and-shoulders above the rest, and are hand-waving concerns around vender lock-in. They’re also saying it would be painful to move because of the aforementioned vendor features that have them locked in. Really seems to miss why many go FOSS in the first place.

I use and donate[d] to OrganicMaps. I think they’re great, but I paused donations around the CoMaps split and have been waiting for the dust to settle. Their responses in the fosstodon thread seem so tone def: They’re asking about github on a mastodon instance and responding that it’ll be a worse product if they move. Thinking it’s time I give CoMaps a shot. [edit: add 2nd link for context]

Barefoot, shirtless, through broken glass. Linux is one helluva drug.

awesome-lists might be what you’re looking for. If you’re talking platforms, search ddg or alternativeto.net for “social bookmarking” I believe there’s even some self hostable options that may have the functionality you want. Sorry for the “look it up” suggestion, I don’t know your specific needs or remember exact names offhand.

Too smart for capitalism where cheap > efficient

It’s why a vast majority of buildings in the US are designed without the local climate in mind (ie using passive heating and cooling systems for that climate). They let HVAC handle making the same design hospitable for all regions. It’s the lowest cost design and build for the highest sale price. All energy and maintenance costs after sale are the consumer’s problem. Relevant podcast episode about how dumb our building designs are due to AC. It has some staggering figures i don’t remember offhand.

I do this, but now I have 10k+ bookmarks, fairly organized, but the bookmark manager is trash. It is slow and getting slower. Also, searching history feels like '90’s web search: hopeless if you don’t remember exact keywords.

Agreed. Week 2, switching browser and search is a couple steps and seems like a good on-ramp to build momentum. Week 1, switching email and calendar is several steps per step and requires some consideration and even paying into a new service.

This looks awesome! I’d just been collect my GPS data thinking one day I’d analyze/visualize it on my own-- not expecting anyone else to make a such a comprehensive program. The UI looks really slick. I’m looking forward to testing it out. Hopefully this weekend. Thank you for this!

That’s a big question, but I’ll try my best to answer without getting too deep in the weeds.

I’ll probably sound like a fanatic, but I use my PKMS for notes, logs, journaling, project and task management, snippets, and documentation. They all have their own structure and flow. It’s a Gall’s Law kind of situation where I started simple and it worked, so it was extended and slowly evolved to reach it’s current complexity.

The beauty of PKMS over a notepad is the loose set of basic features (Wiki-links, tags, templates, etc) that be used in a personalized way to quickly capture, organize, and retrieve info that works best for you and no one else.

As a simple, but detailed example, in the context of learning linux, i might make a “linux” note and dump info there. I put everything in my own words unless I use md quotes (> quoted text) and I add useful links that I also bookmarked in my browser. When the “linux” page gets bloated, I migrate clusters of info into new notes, wiki-linked in the “linux” note. For example a “distros,” note which might have some high level comparisons. I favor making new notes over md headers so it’s easier to find and open notes by name (a “quick switcher” hotkey as it’s called in obsidian). When I settle on a distro I might make a note for it to contain wiki-links of default components EG “apt (package manager),” “gnome (desktop environment),” “x (windowing system)” and dump relevant notes there. If I try wayland, I’d make a “wayland” note but also a “windowing system” note that both wiki-links “x (window system)” and “wayland,” and is wiki-linked in each of those notes.

It could get very meticulous, and some folks setup is too much for me, and I’m sure mine is too much for others, but start simple, experiment, find what works, and add to it. In the beginning I had dedicated time just to developing my PKMS. The important thing is quickly recording and retrieving info.

Sometime i do have crazy scrawlings where i just need a notepad to dump info during a deep dive. That would be loosely zettelkasten style with a time-stamped name, sometime with a few extra works for context/search. Sections could be extracted into their own note later. The note itself could be linked to more organized, related notes.

As a more complex, but shorter example, to show how similar tools can be used in a different manner: I’ll make a note for a command line program, for example, cat. I have a CLI template with a Useful Flags (options) section. Kind of like a personalized tldr. I’ll also have specific notes for complex snippets (AKA one-liners. Real note example: “list-and-sum-all-audio-file-durations”) and if it uses cat, i’ll tag it #cmd/cat. The CLI template also has a Snippets section that uses dataview to automatically list, in this case, all notes with the #cmd/cat tag. I also have a “command line programs” note that uses a dataview query to list all notes that used the CLI template. Also, a Snippets note using dataview to list all pages created with the snippets template.

There are tools specifically for snippets and personalized tldr, and I may migrate to those eventually-- especially after I have my install script up and running with linked configs-- but the simple tools in PKMSs are really adaptable and make it easy to customize and integrate. Plus it’s all md files in a folder, so it’s easy to sync and access on multiple machines, including mobile.

I hope that’s not TMI. Starting linux can feel overwhelming and I don’t want to add to that. Quiet the contrary. I started my PKMS right before my last, permanent switch linux and I think it helped it stick, and 3+ years later I still use [my PKMS] all the time. As I said before, the simple tools that turn a notepad into a PKMS can add a personalized structure to the insane scrawings, making it quick and easy to navigate, find, edit, and add info. You just have to start simple and take your time. I hope that helps. Good luck with the switch!

I use Obsidian. Stores everything in markdown and has a nice sql-query-like plugin, dataview, that I’ve built a nice workflow around. Obsidian isn’t FOSS, which has become more important for me, so I’m looking to migrate over to markdown oxide in helix. If I were starting from scratch I might try logseq or similar. Whatever you choose, I think it’s helpful that it’s stored in a portable format like md so you can change programs if you need.

1. As others have said, it’s possible to play most steam games, but not all. You have to decide if you like those games more than you dislike MS and Goo. I find there’s so many great games out there that I’ll never get to all of them, so I’m ok with dropping some bangers that usually want too much access to my system.
2. Here’s a useful resource if you need to understand slightly technical linux foundations https://linuxjourney.com/ It might not be necessary but it does help to have a foundational understanding, and honestly, the command line is awesome, powerful, and one of my favorite things about linux. Beyond having a basic understanding (and maybe having one of the books the site recommends on hand), before going to an LLM as others have suggested, have official sources of various components bookmarked and go there first. There’s so much BS out there now, I actually like the fact that I can read technical documentation, test it out, and know if it’s true.

one other tip: I’d recommend some kind of personal knowledge management (PKM) system to take notes. Linux gives you a lot of freedom-- that’s what’s great about it-- it can be complex and have a learning curve at times. It’s absolutely worth it though. It’s a totally different paradigm than windows. After a while you can really start crafting the whole system to your needs as an individual. I’m 3 years in and was using my first setup that whole time, i didn’t realize how customized I had made it until trying to set it up exactly on a new workstation. Now I’m writing a script so to automate my setup (os settings, program installs, configs) by running a single command. Then I can really start experimenting.

Everybody’s different and with a little basic knowledge, everyone’s setup can be tweaked to their individual needs a little better than other “user friendly/polished” operating systems. I hope you find as much joy and freedom in it as I do.

I’ve been tinkering with many of these lately, but I’ve been surprised by the lack of interoperability. I’ve yet to work with a bookmark manager that can import and export a netscape html file, without dramatically changing its structure. Of the top 2 for my needs, Linkwarden doesn’t export to html and linkding does, but loses the hierarchy.

As I’ve been working on an install script for making my setup more portable, this is handy and timely. Thanks for sharing!

PS I hate to be the UUOC person. I’m sure you’re already aware and it was a deliberate choice.

Not that I have it all figured out, but it sounds like it would help to decouple backup from sync. I have syncthing keep a two-way sync, including deletes, but have syncthing’s trash as a “backup” (items deleted after n-days) on each device in case I accidentally delete something. Then I have a nightly, encrypted backups with versions stored offsite (eg borg) which is only meant to be used if there’s major failure like a flood or fire. HDD failure is covered by RAID10 NAS. Somewhere in there I have or need a data integrity/hash check, but at least it’s a start.

Thanks for the rec! The anonymous branches and working-copy-as-commit subsuming git stashes is intriguing. I’ll give it a closer look when I have a chance.