You might want to try this matrix channel:

https://matrix.to/#/#simracing:matrix.org

It's a channel for sim racing, but there are pretty knowledgeable people around that can get all sorts of obscure peripherals working on Linux.

Your story reminds me of diving a French car for the first time. No knob or lever can be found in the usual spaces and in the end you always end up giving a turn signal when you try to use the windscreen wiper.

I am using the German QWERTZ most of the time and found the layout rather reasonable. I once tried to learn the neo layout which had the most used letters on the middle row, but you really only can use that at home so I stopped after a week or two as it did not really seemed worth the effort.

You forgot the number one rule about the usenet: you don't talk about the usenet.

I've used jitsi meet (own instance) for this before. OBS might work as well.

I can highly recommend War Of Rights. Multiplayer only American civil war fps.

You form a long line in a field with 20 odd men facing the enemy line. It takes around 25 seconds to reload your gun, while the enemy is firing at you.

"Gentlemen, take aim, steady, steadyyy, steadyyyyyy, FIRE!"

The whole team gets penalised if you die out of line or duck for cover.

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I would think it moral to download the discs you own as rips. Get a vpn for a month and download away. This would be a lot less time and electrical energy consuming compared to ripping them yourself. Also somebody else has already dealt with drm bullshit.

If you are looking for a future proof, snooping free and secure solution for home routers, there is most likely no way around installing open source firmware like openwrt. I would just pick a device with good openwrt support, some ubiquity models have that, if I remember correctly. But there are many alternatives by different manufacturers. I would just chose one with good hardware specs in your price range, install openwrt and call it a day.

You can compare pros and cons of both messengers here: https://www.messenger-matrix.de/messenger-matrix-en.html

Post quantum encryption will probably be an issue in a couple of years and I think there will be solutions then in many messengers.

I am not sure what you mean by persistent user ids. How much would it matter if you run your own server line I so with xmpp?

I am all for using the true and tested xmpp protocol.

I recently heard the idea to donate monthly to one project of your choosing so the developers could rely on a steady income. I think that's a great way of doing it.

Would anyone post a quick guide on how to run WhatsApp l using atl?

There is some documentation on https://gitlab.com/android_translation_layer/android_translation_layer/-/blob/master/README.md and I am rather sure it's the right project, but some sort of installer would be nice. I think installing all those dependencies by hand is not a good solution in the long run. Wasn't there supposed to be a flatpack container to be downloaded somewhere?

I've been using docus (izzys fdroid repo) for some time and can recommend it.

Edit: it seems it's no longer being maintained.

I would switch to jmp immediately if only it were available in Germany.

Podcasts are a leftover from the non centralized and non-monetized internet of the past. Because is that most Podcasts are still available as rss feeds, so you should only ever get adds if they are spoken by the Podcasts hosts. Ate you taking about those? Only something like sponsorblock would help against those. I use antennapod (fdroid) on android to listen to Podcasts. Sine hosts always start their podcast with an add, but you can autoskip the first minute of a certain podcast with antennapod every time. It has a setting for that. Antenna pod itself is foss software without adds.

This is not bad for a start (common commands):

https://linuxblog.io/90-linux-commands-frequently-used-by-linux-sysadmins/

I have been using ps3 controllers on Linux for a couple of years now. They are dead cheap used but you might need to replace the batteries if you need to use them wirelessly. The drivers were included in popos, so plug and play basically. Just get a compatible bluetooth USB dongle, or maybe the deck already has Bluetooth? The original ps3 controllers are very sturdy and work reliably. I would still be using my old ps2 controllers, which are basically the same, but the usb adapters seem to brake way to often and wireless play is rather convenient.

I've been using xmpp for several years now. Even running my own server for family and friends. It's a great feeling to be fully independent imho.

Conversions on android keeps a websocket connection open to receive messages. It's supposed to generate very little overhead in battery consumption. The unified push app on android uses the same technique to provide other apps with pushes. So you could set conversations to be the push provider on your phone and would not need the unified push app any more. This way you would be using the same amount of battery as before.

The conversations xmpp support channel is very helpful if you have further questions: someone there will also very likely know if any apps with unified push support exist.

xmpp:conversations@conference.siacs.eu?join

https://www.messenger-matrix.de/messenger-matrix-en.html

^^ Good comparison with other IMs.