The answer is right there in the fist paragraph, and in more detail if you read the whole article.

The author uses kmscon, that is a usermode console with proper graphics drivers, hi res rendering, and UTF8 font support. There is no desktop environment used.

I suspect that is where the italics support is coming from. Makes me want to try it out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kmscon

I’ve been planning for a while to build a small ARM based cyberdeck style survival PC. It would have a big modular battery, transflective LCD, external wifi, and an SDR. Looks like this thing has many of those features in a tiny little build.

This one is more like a very advanced raspberry pi. It is a powerful computer in your pocket with network jacks, wifi, Bluetooth and HDMI. It can be used for network analysis, penetration testing, software development. What it will actually be used for: plugging into your TV to stream movies.

Exactly right. I would never build a gaming PC with less than 16GB these days. And for friends and family, I’d push them to try to go with 32GB if their budget extends to it.

The sweet spot is probably around 24GB, but then you’re mixing module sizes.

Yes, it’s a common practice that’s been done right back to PS2 and Xbox360 days.

An eReader’s literally only job is to format, reflow, render and display ePubs. If you have one that can’t do that, then it is a fancy coaster at best.

There’s not really any advantage of using txt files over open standard drm-free epubs. You can still generate them yourself using txt editors or publishing software, you can still load them over USB. But epubs give you quality of life features on eReaders like title pages, table of contents, chapter headers, formatting markers like bold and italics.

Yeah true, I’ve got to regularly remind myself that for most professionals working in IT, the only thing they know about Linux is it’s that esoteric free OS that you get preinstalled on a cheap VPS, used for hosting WordPress sites by people who are too cheap to pay for a windows licence. At least, that’s the view that my colleagues at the last two places In worked at had.

Sounds like you’d like a power launcher style workflow like KRunner or Rofi. Instead of hitting the meta key to bring up the start menu and search for the app you need, bind a key to KRunner or Rofi and invoke the app you want directly. These solutions also natively integrate file search, web search, quickly toggling settings, do in-place calculations etc.

We call it the “meta” key. And no, not related to the company formerly known as Facebook.

As someone who has been dealing with exactly this issue with my new employer’s enterprise ICT department, I have some insight to share.

When you have thousands and thousands of laptops that you need to manage, it becomes a burden for the in-house IT department, so they often farm it out to a Managed Service Provider (MSP). This is particularly common for organisations like schools and hospitals that often don’t even have an in-house IT department. The MSP will install policies and management software on the laptops to ensure the OS is up to date, the antivirus is not disabled, the VPN is configured correctly, passwords are changed regularly, etc.

Yes of course there are linux-native solutions for each of these things, but the MSP doesn’t support it, doesn’t offer that service. To keep their service prices affordable for enterprise organisations, MSPs usually hire the lowest cost technicians and support staff. These poor underpaid staff probably have never even heard of Linux. The MSP can increase their marketable value by advertising the certifications they’ve attained. The certifications are provided by Microsoft and are related to Microsoft software and systems.

If you have a small fleet of devices and an in-house IT team that has a bunch of Linux enthusiasts, and a user base who drives demand, then it is possible to support Linux. But it requires a lot of effort and dedication. My old employer did that. They had a fleet of around 5,500 devices (a mix of desktops and laptops), mostly Windows, approx 500 of them were macbooks, and about 50 were Linux. Some of these were users who needed to use software that is available only on Linux, some were like me who are simply more productive and efficient using a linux-based OS. But maintaining, administering and supporting those 50 Linux devices took around 20% of the time of the IT department. That’s massively disproportionate to the number of Linux users.

Not long after I left there, the new CTO put an end to that, they saw and easy cost saving by simply refusing to allow users to have any OS other than Windows.

Yeah, LMDE is pretty good. I used it for a couple of years during my rage-against-Ubuntu phase.

JIRA and Bitbucket are so bad that even Microsoft Azure DevOps (that is a reskin of the decade old Visual Studio Online, which itself is a reskin on the two decade old Microsoft TFS) is somehow better than it. And everyone loves to hate on Microsoft products.

Are there any actually good enterprise grade Task tracker + Code repo combo that we should be suggesting the execs migrate to? Maybe the GitHub Enterprise product?

This is nothing new. I worked at a small computer shop in a small town between 2005-2007. The owner treated memory as a commodity. He checked national ram module prices daily. Buying low, and selling high. He sometimes adjusted the module price on a per-customer basis.

I get that it’s much harder to do that with online stores, where prices are published to multiple places, and for chain stores where the price needs to be consistent between locations.

Yes. I can request a phone from work to use, but that’s lots of work, business justification, need to submit monthly expense reports for calls, and report data usage. Plus I’d need then to carry around two phones. There are lots of people at my work who do that. I don’t want the hastle.

I think the user is referring to the fact that MS Intune is famously very cautious about verifying the device it is running on.

Many people need to use Intune on their device, to get access to work apps (eg, Teams and Outlook). If you have a rooted device, or run a non-stock OS, then Intune will fail the validation and prevent you from signing into your work accounts.

This is the reason I don’t currently use a rooted or alternative android on my primary smartphone.

For tracks I’m familiar with and play often, I can usually tell the difference between 128kbps and 192kbps on an MP3. In very rare cases, with the right song and the right earphones, I can discern 192kpbs MP3 from 256kbps. But I definitely can’t tell a 256kbps MP3 from FLAC. The Wikipedia article on audio transparency says that MP3 becomes transparent on average around 240kbps.

I’ve recently started using the Opus codec. It is higher quality at lower bitrates than MP3. Opus is considered transparent on average at around 160-192kbps.

Personally, I’ve been re-encoding all my FLACs to 192kbps OPUS for storing on my smartphone where space is limited.

No. This makes no sense. Are you seriously saying if you saw an order for 18,000 waters pop up on your monitor you’d just say “that’s fine” then spend the next three days straight filling cups?

If I were the manager of the store, I’d hope my employees would have the bare minimum critical thinking skill to ask someone first.

At the store I worked in, everyone would be given at least 12 hours notice of a catering order. We’d have everything prepped ready to go, and expect the order when it arrives. If one popped up without notice it’s definitely a bug, and we’re definitely not making it.

I’ve used many calipers with a vernier scale, but for some reason I’ve never seen the use of slots like this to simplify and highlight the reading. It’s actually a very obvious thing now I’ve seen it. Are there any commercial calipers that have it?

I don’t know who Alex is, but why does everyone have his drawers, and why are they sized exactly to the Gridfinity grid?