Here are my views on this:

• Windows: The Windows attitude towards privacy isn't good with their telemetry and other data collection increasing gradually from 8 to 10 to 11. In fact, most geeks across the support forums think that 7 is probably the safest and most privacy friendly Windows version but MS is doing everything it can to ensure that newer software doesn't support 7 and it just goes into obsolescence.

  The "default" state in which a W10/11 laptop comes today is so privacy unfriendly that it sends all kinds of data like contacts, location, etc. to Microsoft and their "trusted partners". You can't turn off this data unless you've visited power user forums and know exactly where to find those settings, and basic telemetry still won't be disabled of course.

  As ironic and unintuitive as it sounds, Microsoft Windows was probably much better in privacy department during the bad old days of Gates and Ballmer compared to the good "open source and geek friendly" days of Satya Nadella!

• Mac: Apple systems should ideally be privacy friendly considering the amount of premium they charge to their products and services. But how well does that work in practice? I've never used an Apple product but those who use them seem to have the impression that they're no good in this department compared to others.
  Logic tells me that a more capitalist devil should be no different than the less capitalist one, they're probably all the same when it comes to throwing user's privacy in the bin!

• Linux: Linux used to be the holy grail of users who cared about privacy many years ago but does that still hold good today? Ubuntu was also in some data collection controversy or other many times in past, but how are the state of things today? And what about the derivative distros, are they good too?

First and foremost: I'm not certain whether this belongs in ~hobbies or ~comp. As I consider this a hobby, this seemed like the more appropriate spot, but I'm more than happy to move/repost in ~comp.

So for the past few years, I've really been hit by the computer nostalgia bug. It originally started as me just wanting to dive back into MUDs, and the whole retrocomputing fascination probably came from me wanting to recreate the "good ole' days" where I would pull up the Windows 98 terminal app and connect to my favorite MUD.

Now I've got a room in my house dedicated to this old, esoteric hobby that happens to take up a lot of space. Admittedly, I don't know a TON about hardware but I've been having a blast tinkering around on old machines. It's even more fun to see how I can push the limits of the computers given a few modern tweaks here and there.

Here's what I've currently got sitting up in the Upstairs Museum of Retrocomputing:

• A Compaq Prolinea 5/75 Pentium - this was given to me by a friend who had it sitting in the basement. To my surprise, everything was still in working order and it fired right up (Windows NT 4.0!) on the first try. Of course, I ripped out the old barrel clock battery and put in something safer. I'd say I tinker with this one the most on the software side, while still trying to keep the hardware as close to original as possible.
• A Compaq Prolinea 3/25s 386 - I just picked this bad boy up and am working on getting an OS installed. It had some damage from a leaky clock battery but I don't believe anything was irreversible. I'm not too confident in the whopping 4 MB of memory, but I'm planning on installing Windows 3.11 on this one.
• A Tandy TRS-80 CoCo 2 - It works, but I haven't spent a ton of time with it because I don't have an old TV or monitor with a coax connection. I'd love to figure out how to create my own cartridge with a homebrew version of Zork or Adventure.
• A Power Mac G5 - It's not ancient, but I think it's still worthy of being in the museum. I haven't had a chance to play around with it yet because I don't have the right video cable. I'll get around to it eventually.
• A Generic Pentium 4 - I actually found this one at a Goodwill store. This one fired right up and had a copy of Windows 2000 installed, including all of the old work files that the person left intact. This one has been the easiest to mod because it's somewhat closer to modern and uses a common form factor. So I've plugged in a new OS, new ethernet, etc. At some point the technology starts to blur and you start questioning why you aren't just using a modern computer.

What's next on my list? I'd like to start playing around with computers/OSes that I'm unfamiliar with. I grew up in a DOS/Mac OS 7-10/Windows world, so I'd love to get my hands on a NeXt, BeOS, etc. or even an Apple II.

But first I need to get the damn 386 running again.

So, what's the hottest new thing in IT today, what's that coolest new tech which might prove to be a goldmine some years down the line? The way PCs, websites, databases, programming languages, etc. used to be in the 90s or mobile computing used to be in 00s? Early 00s gave us many a goodies in terms of open source innovations, be it Web Technologies, Linux advancement and propagation through the masses or FOSS software like Wordpress and Drupal, or even the general attitude and awareness about FOSS. Bitcoin also deserves a notable mention here, whether you love it or hate it.

But today, I think IT no longer has that spark it once had. People keep mulling around AI, ML and Data Science but these are still decades old concepts, and whatever number crunching or coding the engineers are doing somehow doesn't seem to reach the masses? People get so enthusiastic about ChatGPT, but at the end of the day it's just another software like a zillion others. I deem it at par with something like Wordpress, probably even lesser. I'm yet to see any major adoption or industry usage for it.

Is it the case that IT has reached some kind of saturation point? Everything that could have been innovated, at least the low hanging fruits, has already been innovated? What do you think about this?

I will shortly have need for a small, low power (power as in watts, not compute power) system for always-on Home Assistant use. However, Raspberry Pis are out of stock everywhere and while they can be had for extortionate prices on various auction/marketplace sites, I'm not sure I want to spend a load of money on something which might not even be what it claims to be.

Home Assistant suggest Odroid which I'd probably go for the C4 edition but it's relatively expensive (I need to add an MMC and a psu and various other things to the listed main board price)

Any suggestions? The Asus Tinkerboard looks overkill and is very expensive. It needs to be capable of running a standard Linux distro, ideally Home Assistant's own OS. Low power consumption is a definite, 2-3W at idle is probably the maximum I'd be happy with. Wifi is a bonus although not required right now - but the ability to add it if needed is essential. Some amount of expansion capability would be good if I want to add hardware sensors or bluetooth or a Zigbee transceiver or whatever. It needs some reasonably amount of compute grunt I assume but I don't think HA is all that hungry for number crunching power. The machine will more than likely be headless at first but a little bit of GPU and graphical IO would be handy if I want to stick a display on it in the future, which I might want to.

Any ideas? Oh, and also must be easily available in/to the UK.

Step right up and claim your raspberry pi!

I have the following to give away (will cross off as things get claimed, first come first served):

• Raspberry Pi 4 / 4 GB + PoE hat + microSD card
• Raspberry Pi 4 / 4 GB + PoE hat + microSD card
• Raspberry Pi 4 / 4 GB + PoE hat + microSD card
• Raspberry Pi 4 / 4 GB + PoE hat + microSD card
• Raspberry Pi x4 "rack" acrylic enclosure
• 5 port gigabit network switch + 4x 6 inch patch cables

Just pay for shipping. Please only claim one thing (or one Pi and the enclosure).

So I disassembled my old PC, and there are a few spare parts that I believe are still good. According to the technician, the motherboard is fried. I have no way to test this, so I'm believing him for now.

I wish to use those parts on a new desktop PC, but I have no idea where to begin... what do I need to buy new? Of what kind/brand/specification/pricepoint?

So here's what I got:

• AMD Ryzen 5 2400G processor
  • with the AMD cooler that came with it
• 1TB 7200RPM non-SSD hard-drive
• 1 Ballistix by Micron 16GB 2400MHz RAM stick
• 1 240GB WD Green Sata SSD M.2 2280

I may have access to another 8GB RAM stick of unknown origins from my partner's old PC, but she's a bit protective of those things so I'll way for her to be home to open it in front of her :P

There's a power source attached to the case, which reads ATX-600W. Image1, image2.

The computer case itself is a little beat up but I don't care about looks at all. Its external dimensions are 34.5cm by 35cm, with a width of 16cm. Here's how it looks (Xbox controller for scale).

I wanna build a new machine with the goals of:

• video editing
  • so Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, some audio work, and maybe streaming.
• gaming
  • nothing super high-end, I'll probably get one or two 1080p 24" monitors because 4K reduces my options quite a bit. But here are some of the games I'm looking forward to playing (all MMOs): World of Warcraft Classic and Retail, FFXIV, Guild Wars 2, and the upcoming Ashes of Creation (which I believe is an Unreal 5 game).

My budget (including the monitor or monitors) is roughly 1400 US dollars. I understand that is not a lot of money for the majority of Tildes users, but that is just my reality. My 1400 US dollars PC is very much a luxury around here.

If needed for budget purposes I can get just one monitor now, and another down the road.

So, what's the best I can do?

Thanks! ;)

A few years ago when I was new to tildes a typed tildes.com directly in the URL bar. I realized I'd forgotten the correct domain extension and did a web search for "tildes community" or something similar.

One of the results was for tilde town . At the time I glanced over it and thought about joining but I never got around to it. Last July I somehow stumbled over it again and this time I applied to join.

It's a pretty cool place.

The idea is that it's a Linux server that each user gets an account on. You then ssh into it - and that's where the community lives!

They have a chat system, a forum system, microblogging that's private to that community, command line games (some of which are multi-player) and a bunch of other really neat features. Each user even gets a folder in their home directory that let's them serve up public web pages.

Technically they have about 2,000 registered users, but the number of actual active users seems to be similar to our community here.

The vibe reminds me a lot of what we have here except that tilde town is casual "slice of life" only and doesn't do news articals at all. Some of their forum posts are similar to our own, with posts for what people are reading and watching and what projects they are working on.

Ive enjoyed my time there so far and I'd encourage any one who's interested to check it out. My username over there is grendel84, stop by and say hi!

Long story short, I wiped my keyboard with a moist towel and I knocked out exactly 6 keys on my mid-2020 MacBook Pro (Magic Keyboard, A2251).

I'm now looking at either paying $300+ to have it serviced by a technician. But I have the tempting option of buying an aftermarket replacement keyboard for less than $100 and replacing it myself. That + I'm in the spirit of DIY repairs to keep my things going longer.

Has anyone attempted this before? Any tips and advice?

It seems slightly daunting because the keyboard is adhered to the aluminium body so I would have to literally tear the existing one off.

Hi folks! I am, unfortunately, probably going to have to build a new PC soon; my beloved Thelio-r1 is slowly failing, and while my original plan was to buy a Ryzen 7 5800X and keep riding this PC for another three to five years, I don't know that I'll actually be able to make that work.

I like the NXT H510 I used for my boyfriend's gaming build, but the thermal performance isn't amazing and, most importantly, I hate tempered glass!

Yes, I understand that people want to show off their (ridiculously!) expensive components. I understand that lots of things have RGB. However, metal is cheaper, easier to work with, doesn't shatter, and I can modify it if I need to.

So, does anyone know of a good mid-tower PC case with decent airflow, up-to-date features (no 5 inch bays, good cable management hardpoints, a cable hiding bay, etc.), and no tempered glass or, preferably, acrylic?

Thank you!

Long time lurker, first time poster. I have a 7 year old lenovo y-40 running Ubuntu which has served me well, but I am starting to get concerned that it may be time to put it out to pasture. Nothing has broken, but I know it's getting a little old.

The way I see it, my options are to stick with this computer and upgrade the ram (currently 8gb, space for up to 16) and perhaps replace the hard drive (although replacing things makes me a little nervous, I have only replaced the battery thus far), or buy a new computer.

I kinda hate buying things but will throw down for a decent piece of gear if I need it. I have a budget of ~1000 (but if it can be cheaper that's better), want to run linux and use my computer mostly for programming and internet-stuff. I am also unsure if I need to stick with a laptop-I almost never take my computer anywhere and have it hooked up to a monitor anyway. I mostly have been looking at getting a T14 or something from System76 but they all seem a little pricey. Thoughts?