I disagree that the implication is only about lack of awareness. Further my point wasn’t that Linux is underused because of a lack of awareness. My point is that user popularity is not a valid measurement for usability.

Awareness definitely plays a role in user numbers but there are other more important factors. For example awareness of Linux doesn’t beat what comes preinstalled, this is a much bigger factor if we are talking about all desktop users in my opinion. Linux could have the best usability out of all desktop OS, most would still not change preinstalled OS for different reasons e.g. not knowledgeable enough, indifference etc… You might argue that if it was the OS it would come preinstalled, but then you would be ignoring the economic reasons that guide that. I still maintain that popularity of an OS is not a metric that can be used to infer usability. As long as there are different hurdles to getting to the actual using part, actual usability can‘t be determined by popularity.

On a side note about awareness:

Maybe it’s a generational thing?

It could very well be, or it could potentially be something geographical. Anecdotally in my friends group of university students(20-26year olds) in a non-technical-field, not a single Person (beside me) knew what Linux was, and most had never heard the term before I mentioned it in a conversation. Neither would my parents. So maybe not a generational thing. I think you might be viewing the extent of awareness from the eyes of someone broadly in the tech field?

I agree with some of your points but in this one and other comments you are referencing “data” multiple times to provide validity for your opinions, yet you either fail to understand what the data is able to measure or you are using it dishonestly to further your argument.

A usage percentage does not provide reliable data about the usability (“viability for the mainstream”). There are too many factors at play distorting it to make a reliable connection between these two.

“It depends on the person” suggests it’s luck of the draw, but the Linux desktop penetration is something like 1-4%, at best, and that’s inlcuding SteamOS and PiOS in the mix […] that’s “doesn’t work for the vast majority of people”

The only way in which the percentage would be useful is, if you are implying that the other 96-99% chose to not use linux, because it doesn’t work for them, which is obviously not the case. Otherwise it is completely meaningless, as users were never exposed to linux, thus didn‘t have to make a decision, and thus didn’t deem another operating system superior.

It‘s coming along in Thunderbird, they continuously mention it in their monthly development blog.

Exchange Web Services support in Rust

November saw an increase in the number of team members contributing to the project and to the number of features shipped! Users on our Daily release channel can help to test newly-released features such as copy and move messages from EWS to another protocol, marking a message as read/unread, and local storage functionality. Keep track of feature delivery here.

If you aren’t already using Daily or Beta, please consider downloading to get early access to new features and fixes, and to help us uncover issues early.

Relevant part:

Huge cursors in GTK4 apps

This problem is already fixed in the main branch of GTK 4, but it’s not backported to 4.16 yet, probably because the fix uses a Wayland feature that Mutter doesn’t support yet. So at the moment, your only option is to use a different cursor theme whose “nominal size” and “image size” are equal.

I might be missing something, but the problems seem to only be scaling issues. Why would I have the same issue on a system with 1x scaling?

Edit: nvm, apparently my system has 1,25x scaling by default

On iOS you can enable Guided Access and restrict what one can do, for example disable touch and lock it to an app, until you enter a Code. I imagine Android will have something similar.

This obviously doesn’t protect against electronic forensics, but it does protect against just opening different apps and searching through the phone manually.

If you don’t get a solution here I would recommend asking on bazzites discord or forum. There are more helpful people with more insights into immutable there. If it can‘t be solved without layering they might even be open to having it included in the image by default.

The Republican vice presidential nominee and Ohio senator claimed in an interview with YouTuber Shawn Ryan that a top EU official had threatened to arrest the billionaire [Musk] if he allowed former President Trump back on X.

“So what America should be saying is, if NATO wants us to continue supporting them and NATO wants us to continue to be a good participant in this military alliance, why don’t you respect American values and respect free speech?” Vance asked. “It’s insane that we would support a military alliance if that military alliance isn’t going to be pro-free speech. […]

“I’m not going to go to some backwoods country and tell them how to live their lives,” Vance added. “But European countries should theoretically share American values, especially about some very basic things like free speech.”

The US ranked 26th in the world when it comes to free speech, with several members of the European Union higher up the list, according to the 2024 Global Expression Report.

If anyone is interested these countries are ahead of the USA from 1-25: Denmark Switzerland Sweden Belgium Estonia Norway Finland Ireland Germany Iceland Portugal Austria New Zealand Canada Argentina Spain Czech Republic Italy Latvia Costa Rica Uruguay France Dominican Republic Netherlands Vanuatu

Update: A license was added

Great to see progress! Why is it behind their official github releases though? Latest version is 2024.10.2 and not 2024.09.0. It is four releases, meaning more than a month, behind.

This is an important issue IMO that needs to be addressed and the official response by Bitwardens CTO fails to do so.

There is not even a reason provided why such a proprietary license is deemed necessary for the SDK. Furthermore this wasn’t proactively communicated but noticed by users. The locking of the Github Issue indicates that discussion isn’t desired and further communication is not to be expected.

It is a step in the wrong direction after having accepted Venture Capital funding, which already put Bitwardens opensource future in doubt for many users.

This is another step in the wrong direction for a company that proudly uses the opensource slogan.

Great news!

I think its a recent addition (08/2024) on Linux.

Add support for biometric unlock on Linux

According to the device support page i should be ok, but yeah there might be something weird going on.

You could use your

• fingerprint
• a pin

to unlock the app instead of the password

I hope I am not misunderstanding you. What you are worried about is passkeys in the password manager not syncing to new devices? They are though, with password managers that support passkeys like Bitwarden, ProtonPass, 1Password etc…

Currently using it on Bitwarden, if I log in to a new device, the passkeys are there.

Could you elaborate? I am assuming that everbody would have the password manager on their mobile phone with them, which is used to scan the qr code. I think that’s a reasonable assumption.

I agree that if you wanted the pc to act as the authenticator (device that has the passkey) it wouldn’t work with qr codes. But is that a usecase that happens at all for average people? Does anyone login to a mobile device that you don’t own, and you only have your pc nearby and not your own mobile phone?

The problem with passkeys is that they’re essentially a halfway house to a password manager, but tied to a specific platform in ways that aren’t obvious to a user at all, and liable to easily leave them unable to access of their accounts.

Agreed, in its current state I wouldn‘t teach someone less technically inclined to solely rely on passkeys saved by the default platform if you plan on using different devices, it just leads to trouble.

If you’re going to teach someone how to deal with all of this, and all the potential pitfalls that might lock them out of your service, you almost might as well teach them how to use a cross-platform password manager

Using a password manager is still the solution. Pick one where your passkeys can be safed and most of the authors problems are solved.

The only thing that remains is how to log in if you are not on a device you own (and don’t have the password manager). The author mentions it: the QR code approach for cross device sign in. I don’t think it’s cumbersome, i think it’s actually a great and foolproof way to sign in. I have yet to find a website which implements it though.

The problem with passkeys is that they’re essentially a halfway house to a password manager, but tied to a specific platform in ways that aren’t obvious to a user at all, and liable to easily leave them unable to access of their accounts.

Agreed, in its current state I wouldn‘t teach someone less technically inclined to solely rely on passkeys saved by the default platform if you plan on using different devices, it just leads to trouble.

If you’re going to teach someone how to deal with all of this, and all the potential pitfalls that might lock them out of your service, you almost might as well teach them how to use a cross-platform password manager

Using a password manager is still the solution. Pick one where your passkeys can be safed and most of the authors problems are solved.

The only thing that remains is how to log in if you are not on a device you own (and don’t have the password manager). The author mentions it: the QR code approach for cross device sign in. I don’t think it’s cumbersome, i think it’s actually a great and foolproof way to sign in. I have yet to find a website which implements it though (Edit: Might be my specific setup‘s fault).

I think it‘s fair to remain skeptical but the big organizations were part of the development, so there seems to be some interest. And it‘s not always in their interest to lock users in, when it also prevents users from switching to their platform.

Development of technical standards can often be a fraught bureaucratic process, but the creation of CXP seems to have been positive and collaborative. Researchers from the password managers 1Password, Bitwarden, Dashlane, NordPass, and Enpass all worked on CXP, as did those from the identity providers Okta as well as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and SK Telecom.