My mom was interested in a smart doorbell to let her know what’s going on at the house when she’s not there, if a package gets dropped off or if someone tries to in. She does have a number of Google Pucks and an Android phone with some smart plugs set up with Google Home, but also has Roku TVs if that ecosystem is a major value add. I’m not super interested in yet another subscription service, but if it’s a “monthly fee to make the problem go away,” I can be convinced. Are there any must have recommendations or considerations I should keep in mind?

Edit: As far as I can tell, there’s no wire leads on or around the doorframe. The old setup had a chime wired to the wall of the foyer, but that was uninstalled and the wall was repaired, so I don’t think there’s a lead if that changes recommendations.

So perhaps I should have done more research , should have known, etc. But their recent news post took me by surprise:

Your subscription money at work:

Image search enhanced with Yandex

They're just out there bragging about giving money to Yandex. This bothers me.

As I said above, I should perhaps done more to research this before subbing, but that news post.

Shame, as I quite liked the search, but it's back to DDG I guess.

Am I over reacting here? What do others think?

I'm not a very heavy tablet user, but generally like to have a tablet around for stuff I won't do on my phone. I bought a Pixel Tablet last year when I did my big tech upgrade (new phone, new smart watch, new upgraded tablet), but found the experience a bit lacking with the more important stuff I use my tablet for, largely taking notes with OneNote, and very light mobile gaming (which I usually use my phone for, since it's right there).

I'm curious if anybody's got any advice for a non-dedicated Apple user with an iPad. I'm already thinking about synergy with my multi-platform apps like Microsoft 365, Google Drive (free tier) and Mega (which I use as a backup repo for large data that isn't documents like games, music samples, etc).

I'm thinking some music apps would be great to take advantage of the generally lower-latency audio capabilities of the iPad, but aside from that can't think of too much. Otherwise, due to the 64GB, it's going to be my cloud-oriented low-storage tablet.

I saved $70 on a black friday deal on Amazon, so I bought a pen to go with it, which isn't the Apple Pencil and would be curious to know if I'm missing out on a ton doing that as well?

Side question: I would be curious what the third-party app world is like as well, ideally something like iOS F-Droid.

I thought I would share my thoughts and experiences daily driving Linux (Fedora KDE Plasma) for the past week.

Why did I switch from Windows to Linux?

My plan was to switch to Linux once Windows 10 hit EoL in Fall 2025. This was due to my computer not supporting Windows 11. This past September, my computer broke (probably MoBo), and so I swapped out my CPU and MoBo, which probably can support Windows 11. However, this hardware swap unactivated my Windows, Microsoft support was not helpful, and I am not a fan of the direction Windows is heading in (removing local accounts, Recall, and a general vibe I get from Microsoft of removing control from end users). So, I decided to make the jump to Linux a year sooner than expected.

My Previous Experience with Linux

So I would say I am moderately experienced with Linux before this. Personally, I have setup a Proxmox server, in which I setup an openmediavault NAS, and played around with various desktop distros for personal curiosity. I also switched my old laptop over to Linux a few years back, but had very low requirements of the tasks that laptop had to perform. I also took a post secondary class on Linux, primarily covering system administration tasks like BASH/PERL scripting, Apache server admin, LDAP, and file sharing all using Ubuntu. So going into this I had a moderate amount of experience, all within Debian based distros. The bigger change with switching my desktop is that it is my primary computer, so the expectations of what it needed to run was higher.

Why I chose Fedora KDE Plasma

I did a post about a month ago asking for recommendations to look into: https://tildes.net/~tech/1ji6/switching_to_linux_looking_for_distro_recommendations
I settled on Fedora KDE Plasma for a few reasons:

• I appreciate the philosophy of not being rolling release like Arch, but also a quicker release cycle than Ubuntu and its forks. I felt this was a good middle ground where I get newer advances without dealing with stuff breaking frequently when there was a new update.
• It can handle most tasks graphically, without having to dig into the console often (more on this later).
• I appreciate the Windows-esque styling of KDE Plasma. I got used to Windows so didn't want a radical shake up. However, it feels to me like a better version of Windows (or maybe just not touch screen oriented and ad bloated).

Headaches/glitches

Some of these are ongoing, while others were issues that I have worked through

• FIXED: Installing nvidia drivers via RPM Fusion. Before installing drivers, the computer was unstable and frequently froze. I ended up just loading a command line only interface and manually typing in the commands to install RPM Fusion and the nvidia drivers. I was planning on installing it via command line anyway, so the main headache here was typing it out instead of copy and pasting the commands in. I also had an issue where I initially installed the wrong drivers.
• ONGOING/INFREQUENT: Occasionally when I wake the computer from sleep, at the lock screen, my mouse is responsive, but my keyboard is not. Also, selecting the virtual keyboard does not work, as the virtual keyboard does not load. I tried waiting for the computer to go back to sleep, and then wake it from sleep to see if it reloads things properly. The computer does not go to sleep normally, so the solution right now is to just shut down the computer and then it is solved.
• FIXED: Steam launched games not closing properly. Specifically Far Cry 5, which runs properly, when I exit the game, the process does not fully close down. From my perspective, it seems like it has, but Steam indicates that it is still running. The solution is to go into System Monitor and close down the Steam application with high resource usage, as that is actually the game still running in the background.
• ONGOING/INFREQUENT/PARTIALLY FIXED: When I wake the computer from sleep, and login, there is a large amount of visual glitches and artifacts on my desktop environment. It is both in applications and especially on the Panel. The current solution is to run the command systemctl restart --user plasma-plasmashell which drastically improves the situation, but the glitches are still partially there. This has just started last night, so probably a computer restart may solve the problem, but I am trying to avoid having to constantly restart the computer.
• FIXED: As Far Cry 5 was a brand new game, when launching it from Steam for the first time, Ubisoft's software wanted me to enter a CD Key, but Steam was not giving me one. Thinking this was a Linux related issue, I switched to my Windows install, and had the same issue. Turns out it is a Ubisoft bug in their software that also impacted Windows. I found a solution online on how to solve it for Windows, did that and authenticated the game. Then I switched over to Linux and the game ran well.
• FIXED: KDE Wallet Service was doing an excessive amount of prompts. I uninstalled the software, but the prompts continued. Turns out it needs to be disabled before being uninstalled, or the prompts continue. So I had to reinstall it, disable it, then uninstall it. Annoying but minor and it is fixed now.
• ONGOING/INFREQUENT/PARTIALLY SOLVED: When waking from sleep, sometimes my background image on my primary display does not fully cover the desktop. This is most likely due to my primary display being 1920x1080, and my secondary display being 1600x900, so the image is not being scaled independently for both displays. The solution right now is to open the settings to change background, and load any image, but not save changes, as this causes my original image to be reloaded properly

Installing/Running Applications

I have been primarily using Flatpaks to install applications. Overall it has been a smooth process. One pain point I have is it seems that the Minecraft Official Launcher for non-Debian systems is kind of clunky requiring me to login to my Microsoft account every time I open the game. This will probably be solved by switching to a third party launcher in the near future. The one software that I haven't gotten around to installing yet is DaVinci Resolve.

What Surprised Me so Far?

There are a few things that have been a pleasant surprise:

• I use the console more than I expected going into it. For flatpaks, I tend to just copy and paste the commands into console. RPM Fusion also had a GUI based install option but I preferred the console option instead. I also have VIM installed, and use that as my digital notepad, just doing simple console commands of vi fileName in my home directory. I was not expecting to use the console as much as I have been, and I think that is partially due to now being more experienced with it, I gravitate towards using the console which I know how to use instead of learning how to do some tasks via a GUI..
• Most things are running better than expected. I haven't touched many games yet, but I haven't had an issue with it yet. It is worth noting that I do not play competitive shooters, so anti-cheat is not something I will have to fight with.
• Libre Office can open my .docx files. I was concerned I may have to convert my existing files to .odt before I can use them, but that does not appear to be the case. I will probably use .odt for new files going forward. It is also worth noting that I haven't worked extensively with my .docx files yet, so there may be some incompatibilities I have yet to encounter.

Overall Thoughts:

Overall I have quite enjoyed running Linux. It does require some tinkering as glitches appear, which currently I am fine with. If I had less free time to tinker and solve the issues, I would probably find Linux to be less viable and more frustrating. Also, most of my glitches can be solved by restarting the computer, although I am trying to find solutions that do not require that. I find it allows me to use the computer and change it to how I want it to be, which I have felt like Windows has gotten increasingly hostile towards the user. A good comparison on this is how the default applications that KDE has included are easy to remove, whereas Windows used to (not sure if it still does) reinstall Microsoft Teams when you uninstalled it.

Edits:

• Added the glitch with background image
• Added more information on my background with Linux, including using it on my laptop

I've been researching internet privacy and fell down the rabbit hole of...well, internet privacy. I started with deleting Facebook/Instagram and switching to fire fox + plugins. I would like to make more improvements but I really have no idea how, it started with deleting socials and next thing you know I'm looking at LineageOS and de-googling.

If anyone has any suggestions on where to go next while staying realistic/not going crazy, i would love to hear them. I am not really sure where to set my expectations, basically I would like to have more control of my data. The other day Google photos gave me a memory recap which kind of creeped me out! I am suddenly not fond of whatever is going on under the surface of Google photos that's making collages and trying to sell my photo books. Also g-board giving me a pop up in the text prediction row asking me to rate the app??? Ew.

I am a fan of self hosting and run a small NAS (open media vault) but this too quickly turns into the privacy spiral and leaves me thinking I should throw my phone into a river and live in the forest. Would love to hear your thoughts/advice/opinions!

This post is inspired by my NAS HDD that has just spun its last spin. After 9.5y of 24/7 Service, the WD Red 4TB is off to the graveyard. It was clicking and whirring, the temperature 21c higher than the other three it shared a chassis with. It's done well, now rest in peace.

Then I looked at the 11yr old MacBook sitting underneath my 6yr old Lenovo laptop. Hmm, also aged but still working. A little bit of OpenCore Legacy Patcher and it's still grinding for test work, albeit a little slow even with a SSD. Then my home built PC running Debian. It is a 2018 built with a MSI motherboard and AM4 socket. The CPU was upgraded 6 months ago for the last time. No other changes though and it's still wicked fast. This box also runs a VM with all my sea sailing, Jellyfin, encodes all my media to AV1, and is also my daily driver. It's a wonderful box.

Hardware lasts a long time now in our world. There's no need for a 2 year bin off of phones, or a 3 year PC cycle that Dell would have believe. In heavy business, I understand the need for faster machines for business software, but for the average Joe, it's really not.

Anyway, what are your tech aged devices you still use, and why haven't you updated them?