Ahh, yes...because it was *top* priority for the Biden administration..or even got a mention on Harris's "four years of JOY!!!11" campaign trail that followed her four years of being VP where she could have attempted to get a subcommittee together in the Senate.

Or because Gavin Newsom or Kathy Hochul or Maura Healey have made it any level of a priority for businesses in their respective deep-blue states.

The Republicans certainly couldn't care less about the issue at all...but let's not pretend that the CFPB cracked the top 20 of priorities for Democrats.

So, these are a few things off the top of my head; I tend to limit my usage to only smaller installs, so consider this more of a "stuff to Google for clarification" list than a definitive set of information...

I think the biggest thing is that there is no analogue to vSAN. It'll mount iSCSI and NFS targets, and its ceph implementation is at least on par with VMFS, but larger installs that depend on vSAN tend to be underwhelmed.

The Proxmox Datacenter Manager, which allows for live migration of VMs between hosts, is still in an alpha state. I've had it work pretty well; it's quite polished for something being described as being in its alpha stage, but the functional equivalent of vMotion is still lacking.

Meanwhile, support is not quite at VMWare levels. Obviously, post-Broadcom, VMWare support took a nose dive, but Proxmox does not offer direct phone support, instead depending on resellers to do so.

Beyond that, I personally found the UI to be rather unintuitive, for example storage is defined at a 'datacenter' level, rather than at a 'host' level. PCIe Passthrough can be a bit...special, compared to VMWare having that be a trivial matter. Also, more sophisticated networking configs are more "Linux-y" in Proxmox than in VMWare, which uses a more traditional switches-and-ports paradigm that's much easier to understand and visualize. I also found VMWare's storage to be simpler, in that a datastore can have thin-provisioned VMs, thick-provisioned VMs, and installer ISOs all sit next to each other in harmony, while Proxmox gets more...particular. For example, an LVM-Thin volume will thin provision any VM stored to it and won't allow QCOW2 virtual disks to be added to it. ZFS storage is more flexible on that front, but it handles snapshots differently...

I say all of this as someone who either has moved, or will move, all of my VMWare clients to Proxmox. The feature set is more than enough for all of them, and as an added bonus, Proxmox is a *lot* less picky about hardware; I've got a box full of 10GbE NICs that got a new lease on life because VMWare decided the PCIe 3.0 Qlogic cards were 'too old', while Proxmox will still send traffic over a 10-Base-2 BNC network through an ISA card if I gave it one.

Of course they do; it's just more insidious. Try installing software without an iCloud Account...it's getting more and more difficult to get downloadable DMG files anymore; even open source Wireguard doesn't distribute a client for OSX independently of the Mac App Store.

Now, once one has the almost-obligatory iCloud account tied to the Mac, the nags come when the storage runs out...because while us PC folk can install 4TB internal SSDs, possibly two of them or even more, there is no way to upgrade the internal storage on a Macbook.

So, the choice is to either walk around with a USB external drive forever...*or*, capitulate to the conveniently-placed notices about how iCloud can seamlessly put 2TB of data in iCloud for you and manage it automagically, so you never run out of space, for $10/month. ...so yes, Apple has its nags; they're just more transparent because storage isn't the primary sales pitch for iCloud+...and while Microsoft is assuredly worse about the nags and notices, Apple isn't innocent.

Because - and I can't believe I have to explain this - if you have the generated value so that you can validate your identity to the computer, there's no way the computer can verify whether I paid you $50,000 for that code. There's no way for the computer to validate whether the data exports I perform are for backup purposes, or to extort the company.

So, whether we're dealing with metal keys, or 8192-bit SSL certificates combined with a 24-character password and an iris scanner...the human holding the means of access can use that access for good or for ill, and there can be motivations for both of them, including bribes. Whether one does so for money in the context of a "paycheck", or does so for money in the context of a "bribe", is fundamentally impossible for a computer to ascertain before it gives you access.

There are many issues with the movie industry at the moment...but I think that many of them can be addressed simply by making cheaper movies.

If a studio commits to spending half a billion dollars on a movie, they're going to enforce extremely rigid parameters. If Gunn wants to get half-billion dollar budgets, he's going to have to deal with the fact that he won't be the director - the Board of Directors will be.

The more practical approach is to pursue less expensive movies - $10M-$50M is a much better ground to work with, because the suits won't be as rigid on their direction. More creativity can flourish because there won't be as much pressure to be a paint-by-numbers film. There won't be expectations of making a billion dollars; if five $20M movies get made and one makes $200M and the other four only break even, the studio covered their costs and still doubled their money.

So, yeah, apparently James is discovering that big piles of money come with rules. News at 11.

Ordinarily I don't reply to AC's, but let's unpack this...

I'm sure you do! But I'm also sure that it doesn't involve the official Cricut app, since they only have a Windows/Mac download on their website. You can probably use the browser-based version of Cricut, or perhaps you've gotten WINE to work with it, or maybe there's some sort of OpenCricut solution, and maybe there's even a bash script running around the Cricut forums that require little more than downloading and running the script to have every dependency met and have it 'just work' the way it does for Windows. I'm sure I could tailor my examples a bit better, but fundamentally, one cannot get a Cricut working on Linux purely by following the Cricut-provided documentation, without using the browser (i.e. dumb terminal mode).

Okay, maybe it's gotten better. It'd be nice if Disney+ worked with an out-of-the-box browser on Mint or Ubuntu the way it does with Edge or Safari. Maybe I should have used Peacock as my example, or maybe my point was that most streaming services work inconsistently on Linux due to the DRM components that are unfortunately necessary in order to use them. Personally, I prefer Mint/Ubuntu shipping without the Widevine components and prompting at first setup, but there have been multiple articles here, on Slashdot, over the years, regarding the back-and-forth compatibility drama with various streaming services; I'm sorry I picked another imperfect example because D+, apparently, works at least some of the time.

Never said selling on Etsy was a problem; it was just a means to an end to describe a common scenario where a non-technical person might have a need for something more than a browser and a word processor.

Never said it wasn't possible, I went out of my way to indicate that drive syncing *is* possible on Linux (Mint, specifically), and that it *usually* works, but Google and Microsoft both mess around with the underlying protocols that sometimes cause those services to break. I put the blame SQUARELY on Google and Microsoft for this, but it's still something that isn't a problem on Windows.

Never said it couldn't...I literally pointed out it's possible to do so on a browser, and that Clementine works, but it'd require a whole process to import an existing library that involved python scripts, rather than an "import library from iTunes" button, for the users that still leverage that workflow (and I know *plenty* who do).

And, cue the broken record, I *said* that scanning works. I said that a specific function that is present on Canon/Epson/Visioneer drivers, which is a huge timesaver, isn't present on most iterations of Linux-based scanning software.

I'm sure you haven't. I'm not saying it can't be done. My *entire* point was that one will either run into higher barriers than Windows or OSX require, or the onramp is made easier because nearly all of the data and actual software has gotten externalized onto cloud-based solutions. Each user is going to have a different amount of tolerance for those barriers, but the draw to Windows isn't Windows itself, it's the laundry list of applications that Windows runs, and Linux doesn't. To switch is to have enough of a principled stance that one is willing to deal with data conversions and migrations, subscriptions and externalities, and workflow shifts in order to get back to the starting point...and that Linux's value proposition, on a desktop, unfortunately doesn't always even out.

No, that's not it. Let's pretend that we're a person who attempts to move their computer to Linux...

For starters, we'll assume that this person has a friend to get them over the hurdles of creating install media, dealing with Secure Boot, and backing up whatever documents they had stored locally, and then moved it over to their fresh install of Mint or Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS, the three most common 'starter distros' in my experience. For added niceness, we'll assume that any and all documents made in Word or Excel are drop-in compliant with LibreOffice being a 100% drop-in replacement with no learning curve or formatting woes whatsoever. We'll just make that the starting point.

Now, our friend gets to a desktop and wants to make a photo of their family their wallpaper. On Windows, one right-clicks a JPEG and chooses 'set as desktop background'. Well, the instructions are different if you have KDE vs. GNOME vs. Cinnamon. Cinnamon is probably the easiest, because it respects the 'file->set wallpaper' from xviewer, but that assumes that xviewer is, in fact, the default photo viewer. The others have multi-step processes.

So, the wallpaper is set, now let's talk about adding some desktop icons. In Windows, one can just drag an icon from the Start Menu and the shortcut exists. In Cinnamon, one can do the same by holding Ctrl+Shift (there are no cues to do so), or one can use the Menu Editor, or one can create a Launcher...and while these methods *do* have some advantages, their discoverability rivals that of Snapchat.

Okay, desktop icons are made, let's listen to some music! Whelp, I hope they stopped using iTunes and can listen to their music in Apple Music or Spotify through a web browser; I'm sure that it's even more liberating to have music on remote servers and pay a subscription than to dare use some sort of closed source software like iTunes on Linux. I mean, I guess one can ensure the correct version of Python is installed, to then run a Github script to convert the data to Clementine...

Or, let's watch some videos! Well, Disney+ is out, since they require a Widevine level so deep that it is broken on Linux as commonly as it's fixed, so fortunately, Netflix is still L2 Widevine...but the included browser doesn't allow playback since its Free Software status is contingent upon not including the Widevine components, so one must download and install Google Chrome to make it possible...now, fortunately, Linux Mint makes it *relatively* simple to get from their App Store interface, but a browser install must be performed to make that possible.

It's a good thing our friend installed Chrome, because they're going to need it for their Cricut machine! I mean, there's a desktop app for Windows and OSX, but for Linux, one is stuck using the browser-based interface, along with the USB connectivity that is not officially supported through other browsers (except Mozilla Firefox; forks and derivatives are iffy on that front).

It's also a good thing our friend's Etsy store, for which the Cricut machine was purchased, has put all their financial data into Xero! It'd have been a massive headache if they were still using Quickbooks for their bookkeeping, because there is neither a means of using Quickbooks on Linux (unless one is going to use WINE, which is going to be a complete headache for Quickbooks), nor is it fun to spend all day using Quickbooks on another computer to export CSVs to then import into GNUCash, and then shift everything to double-entry accounting...and God help our Etsy creator when it comes tax time and the accountant asks for the Quickbooks file...

Chrome is becoming super-useful, because our Etsy designer uses Canva for everything! Good thing it wasn't Affinity Photo, because even though it's made some pretty solid inroads against Photoshop, GIMP still doesn't open the Affinity Photo format, so it would have been another day of converting templates and verifying utility.

Our user will also need Chrome to access data sent via OneDrive and Google Drive, because while Mint's Online Accounts functionality *does* support syncing these services, there are multiple forum posts about these services deciding to not-work after MS and Google make a backend change. Certainly, this is the fault of MS and Google rather than Linux or Mint or its developers...but our user needs their data, and since today is an 'off' day, browser-based downloads, it is.

Of course, one last source of annoyance is that, while our user's multifunction printer *can* scan as PDFs or JPEGs with SimpleScan, the Windows software allowed our user to create multiple scan areas, so a plate of six photos could be scanned in as different image files, whereas SimpleScan requires a full plate scan, only to be cropped afterward.

And all of this - ALL of this - is for what advantage, exactly? "Freedom" is relative since most of the useful data is on Someone Else's Server. None of these applications, except Chrome, were actually transferable, so our user would have had to re-learn lots of different software, had they not put all of that data on Someone Else's Server.

The reason Desktop Linux hasn't had its year yet is because it is inherently, fundamentally, and inextricably caught between two worlds. World One is the FSF group that believes - correctly - that users should have control of their computers and the data created with it. World Two is the userbase that believes - correctly - that a computer is a means to an end and that it is no crime to pursue the path of least resistance to that end, which frequently means accepting concessions in exchange for streamlining the path to that end.

Development and Sysops tasks are done much better on Linux than Windows; that IIS/SQL Server/ASP.Net is an extreme minority in comparison to LAMP is a testament to this reality. For regular users who want to do nontechnical tasks with a computer, there's a huge incentive to pursue commercial software...and until Linux makes it tenable to use that commercial software, out of the box, consistently and reliably, Windows and MacOS will continue to rule the roost. ChromeOS, and its "dumb terminal" philosophy and design, may be the ultimate outcome - a Linux-based OS that is Linux-based in the most pointless way possible.

Travel outside the US. It's become the de-facto standard communication tool.

...what Google should really do is incentivize apps that are only 15MB in size. The entire app ecosystem was built on phones that had 200KByte/sec download speeds, at best; apps had to be optimized in order to be chosen.

Now, we've got ultra fast LTE/5G speeds...and 100MByte apps for restaurant menus and gas station points, that get updated weekly with full-size downloads, with patch notes that amount to "fixed typo in the Pig Latin translation". Instant Apps were only needed *because* apps have become so massive and bloated, with frameworks layered on redundant frameworks.

If Google offered preferential placement to smaller apps, there wouldn't be a need for Instant Apps. Now sure, this begets 'stub installers', where an 'app' is basically a frontend who's first job is to download the rest of the app, a problem in its own right. While I certainly wouldn't begrudge a game for downloading assets for one level at a time to minimize storage usage for the player, it would take roughly three seconds for apps to become tiny installer stubs that make users wait five minutes before the app is in a usable state...so, that's its own issue...but even so, rewarding optimization is a benefit for *everyone*.

And where should those documents *go*? Are we conceding that everything should just be stored in OneDrive, with no folder structure? So then, what's to stop Microsoft from preventing LibreOffice from accessing OneDrive, thus making the utility of Office "you can't access your data any other way anymore"? If we're cool with local file storage, then one would need a way to specify the logical volume the data is supposed to be written to...perhaps with a list of the different volumes that are available...and perhaps a means of using folders and subfolders to help categorize the data...

So, I know a few non-technical people, who have had someone set up one of those pirated-TV-stream appliances for them. These services tend to include basically every stream of basically every broadcast channel, combined with a library of on-demand TV shows and still-in-theater movies. No searching, no downloading...just one interface to rule them all, and they pay in bitcoin once or twice a year for the privilege.

So, if these things are gaining some popularity...is it possible that the numbers have dipped because there's less of a need to go to whatever websites were being measured here? In other words, is it possible that copyright infringement is still as frequent as ever (possibly even more so), but with less accurate measurements?

I've seen eight-minute videos interrupted by a five-minute ad block.

As opposed to the literal fascists in the current administration? Because fascists have historically always clamped down on antisemitism.

I think it's pretty similar in Canada, although I can't speak to the comparative levels of complexity. One reason is that, like the U.S., many powers are held by the federal government, while others are exclusive to the various provincial governments. A notable example is the provinces' ability to levy taxes in addition to federal ones. There may also be other provincial records that the federal government does not have direct access to, such as marriage records.