I stopped using gnome years ago when the new version went out with Ubuntu. I was using a little Toshiba netbook and it was a disaster, just wouldn't work. then found Mint/Mate which worked perfectly on that same little computer for the next maybe 13 years. It was a while ago but if I recall correctly I went over to Mint because it was the only distro with Mate. It was a quite a while back so my memory might be incorrect on this point.

Replaced the Toshiba this year with a Framework 13 running latest Mint/Mate and that was not quite a disaster but it just didn't work properly. Two programs in particular just didn't work at all and the laptop locked up several times.

Now I'm running Debian 13/Mate on it. As I've told Framework support, this, as far as I can tell, is absolutely perfect. Everything "Just Works" and there's been no lockups at all. There used to be an irritation with battery message popups but since the BIOS update this has been fixed. Yet there's no mention at all of Debian on the Framework recommended distributions. Using Ventoy it was the easiest and most explanatory install yet.

Unless of course you have a BT router which takes 12V into a stupidly different barrel connector with a thicker centre pin than anything else. I have a "BT Home Hub 5 Type A" which has been hardware hacked to take a STANDARD 12V barrel plug and firmware hacked with OpenWRT installed so now it actually works properly.

Of course the Xaiomi router which also takes 12V but has a stupidly tiny little barrel connector socket needs an adaptor from eBay to take the same standard power plug as the Linksys router and the modified BT router.

All so that I can use a properly decent quality 12V power supply with an IEC mains inlet for which I paid decent money to Farnell, RS or whoever it was.

This is an unbelievable PITA. Let's have all of these devices powered by USB-C then we won't have to worry at all about finding the correct barrel plug or what voltage the router/switch/laptop/phone wants.

My Framework laptop power supply/charger is a neat little cuboid that has a USB-C outlet socket and a "Mickey Mouse" type standard mains inlet socket. It so far works with ANY device that I've tried that needs charge via a USB-C cable.

Anyone who wants one, as far as I know you can just order one from Framework without buying a laptop although those are also excellent.

Similar history here.

After various distro hops I'd been using mint/mate for years. Installed the latest on my new Framework 13 and it was a disaster. Amongst other problems it kept locking up occasionally needing me to do CTRL-ALT-DEL and going away while it shut down so I could reboot it. I wiped it and installed Debian 13/Mate which has been working absolutely perfectly since it was released.

And the problem as I see it is, the ridiculous price of a rail ticket and the sheer inconvenience of rail travel. I can put petrol in my 35 years old Civic and drive to wherever I want to, possibly with a passenger, at a fraction of the price of a rail ticket. Then, instead of being dropped in the middle of some city and having to get a cab or bus or hire car to complete the journey I can just continue in my car. If I need them my car can easily carry along for me a tent, sleeping bag, stove, cooking fuel, fishing tackle, outdoor clothing and if I need to take more stuff I can just hook up my trailer.

I live near the M4 in England so, just a few hours drive and I'm on the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall or the Lake District. A day driving and I can be in the Scottish highlands. Two days driving gets me to Slovenia. Yes, I've done that too. Yes we sometimes have traffic jams and road works but it's generally pretty hassle and stress free and my car leaves from five paces away from my front door. The train station is more like five miles away.

If you live in a city and just want to travel to another city, well fine, a train can do that so long as you can pay the price.

Always assuming that the damned train drivers are not on strike again when they already get paid a similar salary to most surgeons with probably 1% of the training time and no student loan to spend decades paying off.

That is why travellers prefer to use their own private transport.

OK, it was supposed to be about Panasonic but, I have three Samsung products, a TV that I'm watching a movie on, I like that it has a couple of HDMI sockets, SCART, and both RCA and optical audio outputs, and two monitors, the 20 years old one is a lovely 1600x1200 screen, the 17 years old one is the wide screen format.

The TV has never had any attention and is working perfectly, no sound bar, sounds great connected to the optical input of my Marantz amp.

Both monitors failed recently, but they each only needed around £10 worth of new (Panasonic this time!) electrolytic caps to get the power supplies working again and they're both perfect once more.

After all of this time and thousands of hours none of the three screens has any faulty pixels. I'm a happy Samsung customer but my phone is a Moto G8 and my other kitchen appliances are Bosch and Neff.

I've got a domestic Panasonic microwave oven. Bought it because we had a cheaper one with enamel paint that peeled off the plain mild steel that then went rusty where the door closes, not good at all I thought.

Therefore we bought the Panasonic because it's all decent looking stainless steel. It's got to be over 20 years old and still all works perfectly with no corrosion of course. The only problem has been that the adhesive strip that attaches the door bezel gave up with age. It was a bugger of a job getting all of the old adhesive off each surface, then with some new super sticky 3M VHB double sided (get it perfectly placed first time!) it's put back good as new and continues to work perfectly.

So yes, maybe they made their stuff too well for those happy to pay a higher price while the majority buy cheap crap and toss and replace it every three or four years.

I'm using a Framework 13, base level AMD processor, running Mint 22.1 Mate and I'm pretty darned pleased with it. Ridiculously fast compared to the other rather old computers that I own.

I bought a 16GB RAM module from Framework but got a 2TB storage module from Crucial which was about half the price of the WD ones being offered by Framework at the time.

These are not cheap laptops but it's great that I can just open it up by loosening five little screws with a T5 driver and have access to everything. I've spent hours getting an old Toshiba apart to do a couple of minor repairs and making it work again.

I want to speak up for the Showcase Cinema in Reading.
Beautifully clean throughout especially the toilets.
VERY comfortable seating - something like four feet of leg room, buttons in the armrests to control the recline and extending footrests.
Loud but not too loud, excellent quality sound.

Aim to arrive 15 minutes after programme start?

Personally I thoroughly enjoyed Juror #2 and the new Gladiator. Don't have to go to everything!

Agreed

Actually I'd love to see the original Star Wars on the big screen again.
A couple of months ago Showcase put on the original "The Italian Job" which pulled in a pretty goo audience. More of the classics please!

....underwhelmed by my apathy

....as having too much electricity.

Use it in electrolysis plants to make pollution free hydrogen. Hydrogen has any number of uses - steel making, powering vehicles, I'm not a chemist but possibly making synthetic petrol and other liquid fuels that are far easier to store than hydrogen.

This was more like 1986. There was a two workstation Xerox document preparation system in the office which was the new thing at the time. I recall that the company jungle telegraph reckoned that the engineer who did the steam loco art had received a strongly worded dressing down from management for wasting company time. Trouble was, when photos of the chip got out to customers they absolutely loved the artwork and it became a marketing tool so management then had to go back to the engineer and say Pretty Please, take more time and do a nicer artwork for the next chip!

from Plessey had a steam loco on it because the chain of cells resembled a railway track.