I have it. I would use it if I had contacts there. Compared to Signal, it doesn’t force you to provide your phone number, which is great.

Another big reason to switch to GNU/Linux.

Yes, phone number should be optional for easy contact discovery, not mandatory. As Threema. You have to provide your ID when buying a sim card.

I wanted to switch from a proprietary centralized platform to a free federated one. The only inconvenience is that I find a group with same name on multiple instances, each with its own content. Instead of one containing them all.

I have it and used it in the past. It’s better in privacy than Signal since it’s decentralized and doesn’t use any identifiers. Signal forces you to use the worst identifier ever: your phone number. It should be optional (as Threema) for easy contact discovery, not mandatory. Back to SimpleX, I stopped using it because every time you have to connect the computer to phone if you want to use it from computer (it’s for maximum security, but inconvenient for me). But it’s a great app.

1. Using software; 2. Telling my friends about it; 3. Helping others in forums; 4. Donating money, or bitcoin when available; 5. Running software that helps the network (Full Bitcoin Node, Tor Relay, SheepIT Render Farm - for Blender); 6. Translating.

Yes, sim calls and sms are not private, both on dumb and smart phones. They also connect to cell towers so your location might be found. Anyway, I think the hardware and software of a smartphone is more capable of surveillance you than a dumbphone. The only realistic way is to leave the phone home and keep a paper list of your contacts at you. And call them from a stranger if you need to. I did this and the biggest inconvenience is that I can’t take pictures or videos (I might buy a camera, I don’t know if they have location system incorporated).

Great decision to move to GNU/Linux. I used Mint and recommend it as first distro for a Windows begginer. I always use a USB stick for back-up. Enjoy the journey!

Until last child is adopted, people shouldn’t make any more children. And even if that happens, it’s better to help existing children with your spare time and money, instead of creating new ones.

Google wants to control everything. So bad operating systems can’t be installed on phones as easy as on computers.

Great news. Public institutions should never buy or use proprietary software.

There is a great cheat sheet made by Ubuntu.

Hello guys! Congratulations for your work on so many services! I have a question about Mobilizon: if I want to see events from Bucharest, is there a way to see events from all the instances, or do I have to search on each instance? Thank you!

I use Trisquel because it is recommended by FSF, is based on Ubuntu and I like Mate environment.

Reddit has a big community. It’s about networking effect. That’s why so hard to leave big platforms, because you can migrate to FOSS alternatives, but maybe most of things/people you follow don’t have accounts there.

Ubuntu (because I have seen it on laptops in shops), Debian (because I found out that Ubuntu is based on Debian, is a community distro instead of a company distro), OpenSuse (I wanted to try something different to apt, it looked different), Zorin (because I loved the custom desktop environments), Mint (because a software I needed didn’t work on Zorin, and because Cinnamon DE was very friendly), Trisquel (because it’s 100%, recommended by FSF). I also tested other distros in VM’s (Steam, Guix System, Pure OS, Dragora, Dynebolic, Alpine, Slackware and that’s all I remember). A really beautiful journey!

There must be foss alternatives to every proprietary software. Big thanks to GNU and Linus Torvalds that joined their forces and created GNU/Linux!

I would recommend Trisquel. It’s 100% free, recommended by FSF, based on Ubuntu, MATE environment, but there is also a KDE version, everything works okay.

Things that I would tell to younger me before I switched to GNU/Linux:

0. GNU/Linux is an excellent and easy operating system to use as a replacement to Windows for laptops or computers. It depends on distro too, I talk at least about begginer-friendly distros like Mint, Trisquel.
1. GNU/ Linux is easy to install, at least begginer-friendly distros.
2. As a begginer, start with a Debian/Ubuntu based distro. Because there is a lot of support, many software in repositories (apt), many tutorials on internet, many .deb software to download online. After you get used to it, you can try rpm distros (which run .rpm software, like Fedora) or even other types of distros.
3. Using terminal, at least for basic commands, is really easy. Like sudo apt update/upgrade/remove/purge, chmod +x [file].
4. You can use Linux even without terminal (what I said above can be made through a package manager interface which is already installed on most distros, or using ‘right click-properties’ for file permissions).
5. There are a lot of great replacements for Windows-only programs (browsers, office, text editors, photo and video viewer etc.).
6. You can run Windows software on Linux (using Wine), if you really need to.
7. Gaming can be made on Linux (a lot of native games, plus Steam offers Proton to run Windows games on Linux). You can verify how well games work using this website: www.protondb.com
8. There is not a black-and-white situation. You don’t have to quit Windows forever. You can keep it in dual boot and use it only when you need software that doesn’t work on Linux. For example, a Windows game that is running bad on Proton in Linux.
9. There are a lot of desktop environments (Gnome, Mate, KDE, Cinnamon, LXQt etc.), so your system can look how you want to. My favourite ones are Cinnamon and Mate.
10. You will feel great that you use a free and open source system and support small players in this area, instead of using a monopolistic closed system.
11. People will think you are a really advanced programmer, tech person (quite funny).

Let’s talk about disadvantages now:

1. Changing anything, including an operating system, is intimidating. You will think you will never get used to the new system, software, its way of installing apps etc. But you will, quite fast.

2. Some Windows apps may not work, or work bad. It didn’t happen to me, but I am quite sure it might happen. So you better make some tests of Windows apps on Linux before.

3. If you choose automatic partitioning when installing the distro, it might do it in an inconvenient way. Let’s say you have 960 GB SSD. Choosing automatic partitioning might allocate only 25 GB for system, and the rest (900 GB) for home partition. And it’s very frustrating, because apps install (using sudo apt install ‘app’) in system partition, not home. So always use manual partitioning and put a lot of size for system (/). It can be intimidating, but you find tutorials online.

That’s all I can think of. Enjoy your journey in Linux world!

2 things got me comfortable on command line: 1) A great cheat sheet (one from Ubuntu: https://ubuntu.com/download/server/thank-you); 2) Practice all the commands from the cheat list regularly. Last page is something for Pro version, but first 2 pages are great for a begginer. There is a typo at a command (or it was in a past cheat sheet): “Sudo change <username>” instead of “sudo chage <username>”. It helped me most to get comfortable with terminal. Enjoy!