I’m coming back to Linux after a hiatus. I’ve spent most of my time with the Debian flavors. Not afraid of the command line, but not an expert either.

I’m trying out Bluefin right now, semi-immutable atomic os based on silverblue, based on Fedora.

On normal installs, I usually change and install enough stuff, that when it comes time to upgrade to the next os version, I’m sometimes not able to without introducing instability or it outright falling. The former more common than the latter.

Let’s just say I got used to reinstalling and starting from scratch, especially if I experimented too hard and broke something big like my DE or drivers.

So with bluefin I’m hoping to leave everything that’s core, alone. I’m trying to rely on flatpaks, app images, and distrobox for everything else.

So far so successful. I’ve only got a couple minor gripes, some limitations of flatpaks. But I’ve also only been at it for like a week, so we’ll see.

I guess my point is, flatpaks have a place 🤷‍♂️

Just the other day, I was trying to run a CLI program, one I won’t name.

I’m trying out a new immutable distro, and couldn’t install it, so I said hey these new flatpaks are supposed to be all a guy could ever need.

So I downloaded an app that uses this unnamed CLI program as its core. It was a GUI app. And while it worked just fine, I also had very little control over what exactly was gonna happen and how it would happen. I wanted to do some specific things I knew the core program could do, but there was no way to do it.

Eventually I dug deeper and realized I’m an idiot and the CLI program can run without installing it or any dependencies, so it was fine to use natively. I was able to accomplish my task quickly and efficiently after that, happy as a clam.

CLI and GUI both have their place. I prefer GUI most the time, honestly. But having some CLI chops can be extremely useful at times.

PDF has its place. I’m sure there’s something better that could replace it, but PDF is ubiquitous.

I hate getting sent docx files or whatever that stupid iPad notes format is. I open it and the formatting is all screwed up. Or I can’t open it at all.

When I send files, it’s a PDF, so I know they are seeing exactly what I am seeing. Exactly as it was meant to be seen.

It’s not fully immutable like steamos. But yes I do see your point, it could be confusing.

That’s fair, I’m a bit uninformed on wine and proton’s roots. However I’d argue that for someone like OPs girlfriend, a somewhat-immutable atomic based distro like bazzite might be better. Especially if it’s only used for gaming and YouTube 🤷‍♂️

But different strokes for different folks, so perhaps they’d be better off just installing steam on their distro of choice 👍

You’re… Still running windows 7?

I think the implication is that they will switch to Linux

Wine need not apply. That’s old school. Sims 4 works great in proton. Basically just install steam and the rest is handled.

Better yet, install bazzite as your distro, gaming works out of the box.

Regulations cost money. African labor is cheap. Don’t worry, the market will sort it out…

That’s what I’m doing. Framework for the win

Hi there! Thanks!

You’re right it’s a radio thing. There are many types of radio things, this is just one piece of one of them.

This community focuses on meshtastic, which is a communication protocol that rides on top of LoRa. LoRa is a type of radio signal, kind of like how AM and FM radios are different, this is a little different too. It’s designed for low power, free and legal to use, long range communication.

The beauty of meshtastic is in the name, it’s a mesh. So all the radios talk to each other and relay messages to increase the distance you can send messages.

This picture is a simple example of that:

Use cases include everything from long distance emergency communication to friends keeping in touch while camping or hiking with no cell service. There’s way more, but that’s the idea.

Companies have made similar products before, but they’ve always been fairly expensive. But these LoRa meshtastic radios are only like $20-30, so it’s really easy to get started. And they are more flexible.

There’s more to it, but that’s the main idea. The thing I made in the original post was an antenna, trying to improve the range of my radio. It worked about as well as a store bought one, which I guess is better than it doing worse 🤷‍♂️