Same for me. I distro-hopped for about 20 years with OpenSuse, Ubuntu, Debian, Arch and Fedora being the most memorable desktop setups for me. While all that was a valuable experience, NixOS feels like graduation.

For the Nix-curious: I wish someone would have told me not to bother with the classic config and build a flake-based system immediately. They’re “experimental” in name only, very stable and super useful in practice.

It’s a good idea in theory, but it’s a challenging concept to have to explain to immigration officials at the airport.

You’re right about the location, my mistake. I never said it was photoshopped. I still think that vandalism is the obvious explanation here.

Is it, though?

It’s not real.

1. That’s not the same block. E: Apparently, it is
2. The location from the original screenshot is here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/8rdfbZJzGmKSQKBR9 (The pin seems to have been removed for me.)
3. Not sure how a real restaurant with a different name makes this any better

I think it’s pretty clear what happened, no? Somebody vandalized Google Maps with a racist joke and took a screen shot.

As in, you verified there’s an entry on Google Maps?

Yes, racial slurs are very cool and funny

Velociraptor = ∫ Acceleraptor ⨉ Timeraptor

I totally understand where you’re coming from, and I’m pessimistic that any flavor of Linux will be an acceptable experience for the person you’re describing. Something like Silverblue may be least obstrusive, but compatibility will still be a prominent problem.

Alternatively, you could show them surface level cool stuff that’s easier to do with Linux. Like blocking all ads, running your own Minecraft server, downloading YouTube videos, building your own PC with cheap parts (and maybe even pirating movies and TV shows, depending on your own practices and relationship to that person). There’s a lot to love about Linux even if you don’t care about privacy and open software as abstract values.

The way I usually start teaching using the console to my (very much non-tech) students is set up a safe container and then let them type whatever, invariably generating a lot of error messages. Then I challenge them to generate different error messages, “gotta catch em all” style. Then we talk about the error messages and what they might mean. After this exercise they usually get the basic idea of command – response, what to look out for and how to compose valid commands.

This sounds like a good idea, but I think the problem here is that a lot of popular software runs great on Linux but is very clunky and ugly on other systems (looking at you, LibreOffice). So keep that in mind if you try out FOSS on Windows as a sneak peek.

Navigation on Android: Osmand lets you download and cache OSM data so you can use it offline. Cache is unlimited if you download Osmand via F-Droid.

You can put together a media server and build a catalogue so you can watch movies and series offline. Maybe not a huge priority in that situation but definitely nice to have.

Jellyfin is a good option for streaming from a media server to other devices. The *arr suite is an option for building the catalogue.

“I mean it’s all just numbers, right?”

If I’m not mistaken, ffsend generates a link that you can share with non-tech people (which is a big difference in my book).

ffsend targets Send which is an actively maintained community fork of Firefox Send.

It’s not centralized, you can host your own or choose from the public send instances.

A real classic: BBC Radio 4’s History of the world in 100 objects

You can load bitmap images into Inkscape and manipulate them to a degree, but Gimp is much better at that. You can probably also load vector graphics (svg) into Gimp, but I’d assume they would be converted to bitmaps.

Vector vs bitmap is a good topic to be familiar with for anyone who works with computers, I keep running into professionals who really should know the difference but don’t.

Helpful answer: vlc, libreoffice, gimp, inkscape, zathura, obs-studio

Real answer: gnome, run-or-raise, foot, fish, tmux, fzf, silver-searcher, neovim, neomutt, vifm