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Am I the only one using Btrfs snapshots like this?
  • I know it is not secure. Are you saying that I can roll back to the state before I intentionally messed around without rebooting? Can you elaborate?

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    Companies that use desktop Linux
  • I work for a very small company. We do embedded development. They gave me a Windows machine. After a few months I ditched Windows for GNU/Linux and after a couple years the other two fellow developers followed suit.

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    Am I the only one using Btrfs snapshots like this?
  • It could be a sensible approach, but with a snapshot I am free to tinker with every aspect of the system knowing that I can revert everything with a reboot.

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    Am I the only one using Btrfs snapshots like this?
  • A broken system is no big deal for me, I can easily get up and running after a failed update. My data is also mirrored to my Nextcloud instance.

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    Am I the only one using Btrfs snapshots like this?
  • Yes, I reboot into the snapshot. I need to tinker into a copy of my system and I think there is no easy way to boot into the snapshot with a virtual machine.

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  • I use Btrfs with Parabola GNU/Linux-libre, a derivative distribution of Arch Linux. I use no snapshot management tools such as Snapper or Timeshift. I keep my system minimal and tidy. Everything is boring and predictable. I do not bork my system by mistake, except when something breaks after an odd update, usually once or twice per year. When it happens, I find a workaround (usually something needs to be downgraded) and file a bug report if there is none.

    When I need to tinker with something that can possibly go out of control, like installing a new package for a program that I want to try out and I am not sure I will want to keep it, I take a snapshot of my current "pristine" system and boot into it. In the snapshot copy of my system I do all the dirty stuff I want to try out. When I am satisfied with my findings, I reboot into the main subvolume and delete the snapshot.

    It seems to me that most people use Btrfs snapshots preemptively in case of unexpected failure. I use snapshots exactly when I know I am going to do something that can lead to instability or «OS rot». Am I the only one using Btrfs snapshots like this?

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    Niche Distro Users: Why?
  • I have used Parabola GNU/Linux-libre exclusively on my main system for more than ten years. I like Arch Linux, but I do not like non free software.

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    Hyprland is now fully independent!
  • I was wrong about the number of intersex people known to exist. There are less than six hundred known cases of people with ovotesticular syndrome, a condition that was also referred to as "true hermaphroditism", where an individual is born with both ovarian and testicular tissue. As per strict definition of intersex, statistics are in the range of 0.02%–0.05% of the world population. A more lax definition wants this figure as high as 1.7%. This is an atypical condition that may or may not require medical attention. The existence of this condition does not undermine the fact that the sex of human beings is binary.

    I had seen languages butchered in bad ways and I am not a fan of it. Sometimes I make mistakes in writing and speech, but I try avoid it. Even when it comes to pronunciation, I strive for a neutral accent devoid of regional inflections. Personally I aspire to language purism, though I concede that this concept is vague because languages naturally evolve over time, they always have. Nevertheless, I do not want a government putting "neopronouns" in my mouth. At the moment this is not the case and you are inferring that things are going to be okay and there is nothing to worry about. Of course I want you to be right, though at the moment only speculations can be made. You may not be an advocate of such hard to manage grammar, but there are people out there who are.

    Regarding your suggestion about logging off of social media, if you mean Facebook, Instagram, X and the like, I am not a fan of them. I have never signed up to those platforms and never will. I have never had a Google account, not even for a brief time. I signed up to Lemmy and in the past I was also on reddit for a couple of years. I was also on IRC back when it was popular. For most of my life, I have been doing most of my online interactions via instant messaging technology with people I know in person.

    Diversity in the workplace the way we know it is a concept inherently discriminatory. If there are laws in place that prevent the exclusion of marginalized people, everybody should be free to compete in the job market regardless of their sex, ethnicity, religious belief or whatever. If we concede that these laws are enforced, diversity can naturally occur. Pushing diversity in spite of existing laws means that people should be hired based on some specific inherent traits that have nothing to do with expertise and fit for the purpose. It is like racism, sexism or other "-isms", but in reverse. People who are not white, heterosexual and male are supposed to enjoy special attention based on their "diversity". This is unjust. Are we supposed to abide by a non-heterosexual quota? And what about dwarves? Romani people? Inuit? What if people who identify as two-spirit penguins are underrepresented?

    The so called "woke ideology", whatever name you want to call it, is very real, is an American concept and has started to creep to this side of the world. I speak about the situation of my country not because I am proud of my nation, but because you may give for granted something that may not reflect a worldwide view on a given subject. I prefer artists who are free to represent people with the skin of the color they want in their entertainment with no political agenda pushing them to do otherwise. I want comedians to be free to entertain with jokes involving all types of slurs and stereotypes, if they wish to do so. I am witnessing a chilling effect in entertainment with people walking on a thin line. I hope this is a fad that will crumble under the weight of its own lunacy. Until then, I will oppose every bit of it.

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    Hyprland is now fully independent!
  • Less than six hundred intersex people are known to have ever existed. It is an extremely rare occurrence. There is no single human being known to have both reproductive organs in a fertile state. Fertile intersex people can have at most one reproductive organ that can generate offspring. Truly bisexual living beings have been observed in the animal kingdom: amphibians, molluscs and reptiles, but no human case is known to science. Moreover, most of the few intersex people known to have ever existed show physical and mental features that belong to one of two sexes. Contrary to popular belief, such people are mostly not some sort of hermaphrodites. They look and think as either men or women. Human beings are born either male or female and even if some rare occurrences exist, that tells us that something went wrong during pregnancy. For example, human beings are born with four limbs, but sometimes, something goes wrong and a baby with three limbs is born. This rare occurrence does not invalidate the fact that human beings have four limbs just like the fact that human beings are born either male or female.

    In my country you can face consequences for calling racial slurs at a societal level or in specific settings, such as the workplace, but there is no law in place that directly tackles hate speech. In public, yelling racial slurs may upset someone and you can face consequences from people who oppose your manners, though in general no legal penalty can be levied for such behavior. I think this is the way it is supposed to be. It is a free country, after all. If people do not like you, society at large may isolate you. I do not want a government to take control of my mouth with laws limiting free speech the way they are doing in some parts of North America.

    As I stated in a previous comment, when interacting with a transsexual person, I address said person by the pronouns that match the "gender" that they purport to show off. That is, when dealing with a man who transitioned to look like a woman, I use feminine declensions. I believe that doing otherwise would be impolite. I think that basic respect for others is advisable and being friendly goes a long way but I still want to have the possibility to say nasty things, if a polite feedback is not enough to state my point - or even for humorous purposes, if that is what I want.

    The issue at stake is not to address men who appear as women or women who appear as men with the desired pronouns. This ideology is stretching things as far as making up an "inclusive" grammar with invented pronouns. My native language is highly inflected - we have nouns that are either feminine or masculine. Here we have marginalized left-wing organizations promoting a made up grammar that is so convoluted that even those who promote it can not manage to get acquainted with it. I do not dream of a government prescribing me to remember a made-up pronoun to refer to a specific person. There are laws in place that prevent the hiring process to selectively hire on the basis of sex and ethnicity, yet these groups are striving to push "diversity" at all costs, sometimes not on the basis of merit, but because they want spaces that look less heterosexual and less white.

    We do not know yet if this unfortunate societal shift is going to reverse. History has taught us that reversal is possible. I am an outspoken opponent of this whole woke ideology and there are sensible like-minded people out there who oppose this American-born ideology.

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