The only DE I find usable over the long term is KDE Plasma (side note: also a macOS user, and I don’t like Gnome). This hasn’t always been the case. I used to prefer Gnome in the v.2 days. I have some gripes with Plasma, but very few. My Slackware box boots into Plasma 5 at under 500MB RAM usage. There are many XFCE-based distros that can’t achieve that.
Having said this, much of the time I use IceWM. Old school, baby!
Try explaining that to the average technology-declined user who believes everything they are told by Google, Microsoft, or even their financial institution. I tried. If they don’t listen the first time, just walk away and let them suffer. Even after you offer to do it for them.
“My bank said that I have to use Chrome and all extensions must be deleted!”
While the bank’s “tech support” is based in India and is just reading off a list of approved talking points.
I never used macOS. But I did revive an iMac and a MacBook from the dead for two different people. I always thought Plasma was much more like Windows than macOS, based on what little I had to do inside macOS to revive everything from the dead.
I never did understand Gnome as a DE. To me, it seems like Gnome is trying to do what Microsoft did with Windows 8, by making it all things to all situations. Windows 8 was so bad, it made Vista appear perfect.
At least with Linux, we have options. If you don’t like your DE, you can alter it if it allows alteration. Or you can replace it with something else. I hear there are Linux users who do everything from the terminal prompt and are easily offended if anyone suggests that they should use a DE or windows manager.
I think this comes from how people conceive of computers. Apple and Microsoft (and Google with phones) promote the idea of computers as toasters. You’re supposed to plug it in, turn it on, and make toast. You use it for the predefined tasks the companies prepared the computer for.
The problem with this, of course, is that computers aren’t toasters, and they never were. I can remember getting my first PC when I graduated from high school. It came with a 20MB hard drive, a bunch of DOS floppies, and instructions for how to install the OS and get going. That sort of thing communicates a different message: this is a machine you build and configure yourself to do the things you bought it for. Only you can define those things, and you are the one in control. Here are some basic instructions; have at it.
People don’t have the proper conception of what a computer is anymore, because it’s not presented to them that way. I don’t know how to fix it, but I think that’s the problem in a nutshell.
I believe you nailed it with the toaster example. People are always shoving forks and knives into their toasters. Equivalent to how people are always loading their computers with all kinds of junk that doesn’t belong.
You must be younger than myself. When I graduated from high school, the bleeding edge was an Apple II if you could afford it. Several years later, I got my first computer, a Radio Shack Color Computer 2. Virus? No problem. Push the red reset button. The virus is now wiped from memory, along with everything else. Just remember to delete the offending file from the floppy disk or cassette tape. An advantage of having your entire operating system on a few ROM chips is instant death for evil code. Assuming your ROM chips contain good code.
How to fix it? We sort of started back in the 1980s when computers entered the classroom and a computer class was required. Trouble was, the technology-blind teachers were leading the blind. Most of those classes were little more than copying in a BASIC program from an approved textbook or computer magazine. I feel all they did was teach 99% of the classroom to hate computers. I know my younger brother complained about having to type in all those lines. If I bring it up, he still complains about too much coding, not enough about what goes on inside. Instead, schools should have concentrated on the basics of how a computer works rather than a computer language that would be obsolete in a few years.
On the other hand, the technology-declined will always be with us. Just as the poor will always exist.
Sometimes it is better to start teaching about technology instead of a “toust” example. What I like the example was the message above:
I like that, you do in fact own a computer, you build it yourself, configure it, and then install a complete operation system. But since these giant corporations ruined it, we gotta go back to take the example of, what I a person just said above the quote. But it all comes down people, who are nowadays stupid, celebration of stupidity is not normal to me. I would rather create my own society, my own culture to counter-strike (if that is what I want it to be meant) the same society we still live today. Only problem is, we need to educate people to create a perfect community without making it out as an occult (Which, it shouldn’t be because that would be against of what I want to achieve, no cults, just revamping society).
Now, I am also a younger generation, Gen Z here.
But you can call me an IT bro, or whatever, since I know Computers as a intermediate. Not an expert.
That isn’t just a “today” thing. The easily brainwashed, mentally weak, and easily fooled have always been around through all history.
However, the celebration of stupidity while beating down the intelligent or anyone willing to learn based on reality is a relatively new phenomena that started a little over a century ago when the Bolsheviks had to kill off everyone who knew anything in order to maintain their totalitarian rule.
Of course, two decades of this activity almost wiped out the Bolsheviks because by WWII, they had eliminated almost everyone who knew how to think for themselves, resulting in Nazis almost occupying Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad. The only things that saved them were poor planning by Hitler and “more free stuff” given to them from America. There is a reason why all Soviet trucks built post-WWII looked exactly like American trucks. The Bolsheviks didn’t know which parts were critical and which were not, so they copied everything, right down to the shape of the hood. The only reason they could build a tank was for the fact that International Harvester built a tractor plant inside the Soviet Union at the request of Stalin a decade earlier. If America had told Stalin to get lost, everyone today in Perm and Ufa would be eating schnitzel and sauerkraut for breakfast.
That is how we got to where the country is today. In the last half of the 1960s, there was the counter-culture revolution. Those people are now retired and in their 80s. At the time, I was just starting school. Based on your statement, I believe they hate you for not thinking as they demand you must think. Harsh but true.
I agree with that. The entire 1960s counter-culture gave rise to the creation of multiple cults, with some still existing today. What needs to happen is the reversal of everything the counter-culture did and gave us today. I was just a young kid at the time, but even I could see something was wrong when freaky looking people show up demanding free food and conversion to their latest and greatest cult, which involved illegal but very effective mind-altering drugs.
Yes, I know the elderly hate it when I portray their generation the way I do. But the truth needs to come out. Offended by your younger self when your actions from decades ago are exposed for the young generation to see? That is your problem, not mine. I too, despite being a not much more than a decade younger, have spent a lifetime putting up with their garbage outcome.
The only way to combat this is with exposure of the truth combined with education. An actual education. Not the garbage that is promoted as “education” inside the indoctrination camps, formerly known as public schools. Which is the place where the intelligent are beaten down while the idiots are promoted forward as the way of the future. In my book, public school teachers are indoctrination camp nonworkers, unless they can prove otherwise. So far, I have never met one willing to prove otherwise. Funny, isn’t it?
Nothing wrong with not being an expert. I am retired and have been tinkering with computers since 1984 when I got my first Radio Shack Color Computer. I was an 18 wheeler pilot for 14 years before retiring but don’t claim to be an expert. Before that, I worked in the tool and die trade for almost 25 years, but I don’t claim to be a journeyman machinist or expert CNC programmer.
That’s a long enough rant for now.
I’ve seen cross-contamination between my iPhone (which I only use as a phone) and my GMail account (which I only use as a garbage dump, including as the iPhone’s login). I don’t recall what, but something that should have only been on the one showed up on the other. So they are definitely speaking to each other.
LOL. So right about Gnome. – I keep a Win8.1 laptop and VM. I beat it with a stick until it agreed to look and behave like a normal desktop, and it is fine (OpenShell, Winaero Tweaker, and a decent theme worked wonders). But the default interface was entirely unusable. If I wanted a cellphone on the desktop, I’d use a bloody cellphone as my desktop!
Are you using the Gmail app for iPhone? Or are you using Gmail from within Apple’s default Mail app?
The reason I ask is that I have Gmail on an iPhone, but not the Gmail app. If Google demands that I verify a login, I will use Gdrive, as I don’t use that for anything other than a garbage dump.
Nope. I don’t do email from the phone at all, and I don’t use the phone’s browser either. It is literally just a phone, the more so because the battery sucks and it stays home chained to the desk. If I have to carry a phone, I have a flip.
I do have the GMX email app installed, but only as a keep-alive for the account (saves me having to remember to log in every few years). GMX is owned by IONOS, who are also my web host (since 2003).
I can log into GMail via the phone’s browser, which I’ve done exactly once, given that was the only way to get the iPhone to import my contacts. But no GMail app.
Other than GMX the only apps I’ve installed are Truth Social, Textilus (text editor), and Collabora Office (which I wouldn’t bother with again, the phone is too annoying to use for such stuff).
I’ve got a pinephone (with the keyboard case) that runs Manjaro with KDE mobile. The phone doesn’t like my provider but as an interface it is so much easier to get it to do what I want. If I were actually buying a phone (the iPhone fell on my head) I’d be looking for one with KDE mobile!
I use the desktop or one of my iPad devices for email, except when on vacation from retirement and all I have with me is the iPhone and iPad, SD card to Lightning adapter, and my digital camera that is the size of an old 35MM SLR.
I wish my old Kyocera flip phone wasn’t rendered obsolete by the service providers. That phone was dropped onto the truck stop parking lot so many times while getting out of the truck that it is amazing that everything worked like new. It could pull signals where other phones had nothing. It just plain worked.
“What’s wrong driver?”
“My phone has no signal to call dispatch!”
“Here, use mine. Press 2 followed by send and wait for the recorded message. 3 for maintenance.”
Not pretty. No apps. But when in Parsons, West Virginia, it was the only phone that worked with zero bars while getting a load of charcoal. It was built for Nextel.
I wonder if GMX is the culprit. I never used it, however, I just went into the App Store. It says:
Data used to track you: Identifiers, Usage Data.
Data linked to you: User content, Identifiers, Usage Data.
Data not linked to you: Diagnostics.
Interesting is how the seller is shown as 1&1 Mail & Media GmbH. Not IONOS. Was it sold? Would it be the culprit doing the data harvesting and sharing and?
When I enter in IONOS, I get an app for managing an IONOS website. That app says nothing about data tracking or data linking. But it says Usage Data and Diagnostics is not linked to the user. The seller is IONOS SE.
I am checking this on iOS 18. Over on my old iPad Air, “Requires iOS 13 or later” for IONOS. GMX Mail informs me, “Requires iOS 17 or later.”
I am getting fed up with Apple’s planned obsolescence by making apps no longer available for older hardware and not offering valid alternatives. Like Microsoft and Google, Apple does bloat.
I don’t have any social media apps. I agree with trying to do office work. An iPad Air is different, with that large screen and a Bluetooth keyboard.
I have always been tempted to check out the PinePhone. Not sure what my provider would do with it. Theoretically, I should be able to pull the SIMM from the iPhone and install it into something else, and it should work. Supposedly.
The other thing is, the only time I go into actually using a phone as a computer, it is twice a year when on vacation from retirement and I don’t want to pull the iPad out of the back seat or the iPad doesn’t work with navigation (no GPS). If I need to use an app at home, there is the browser on the desktop or use my now obsolete iPad Air or almost obsolete iPad 6th Generation.
I will give Apple credit in one department. They did an excellent job of making their assorted hardware “talk to each other.” I can get a text message on the iPhone and deal with it on one of the iPads with the big screen rather than on the tiny screen.
Now, if there was a way to get the iPhone to forward messages to Plasma 6 in both directions. 
I’ve heard good things about their phones. My flip is a moderately crappy TCL (hardware is fine, KaiOS sucks), being that’s whatever Ting had available. Ting costs me $10/mo. plus tax (unlimited talk and text, I have cell data disabled in favor of wifi)
I have a Wilson booster that can scrape up two bars where everything else shows zero. I wonder if the Kyocera has a built-in booster.
Nope. It’s been on there for years, and GMX is German, following German privacy laws. The iPhone is a 6s that runs iOS15.something, so I don’t know what the current requirement is about.
Back in the era of tin cans and string it was 1&1. I still usually call it that, and some places they do too. They merged with some cloud storage and it became IONOS. It’s the largest web hosting company in the world. Back in 2003 they ran a hosting special (a then-massive 500mb storage free for 3 years) and I never left. Good value and intelligent humans in tech support. I didn’t know they had an app for website management – I might try that!
If I would break down and call Ting and ask for a SIM specific for it, it would work. It did not like the spare SIM I already had, and by then I already had two Ting accounts and couldn’t talk myself into a third. I wish they could all share the same phone number, especially as people keep giving me retired iPhones that I could then park in the barn or truck. I don’t like Apple lock-in but you gotta give 'em props for doing that right.
Someone gift me an old iPad and the iFixit kit to replace its dead battery, but so far motivation hasn’t been there. I have a Kindle Fire that I hate, and occasionally mutter would look much better with Plasma on it. (But it’s the Kindle testbed for helping out a blind friend, so it needs to stay what it is.)
No idea. It just worked while showing zero bars. I had to wait for the “no service” to display for total failure.
I will take your word for it. There must be something else in that phone.
That sounds older than the phone system on the farm when I was a kid. We had a wood box with a crank. Two batteries inside a box mounted to the house. Just like on Andy Griffith, Green Acres, or Petticoat Junction.
Share numbers like on the farm. Oh. Wait. No. There were 8 farmers sharing the same line. There were no numbers. You just told the operator who you wanted to contact, and she cranked out the correct ring sequence.
Too bad Apple doesn’t offer money for old iPhones. It would go a long way to eliminating the E-waste. Around here, the best I can do is turn old phones over to Elgin Recycling.
To me, that sounds like a complete waste of time. Apple and everyone else should be required to built phones like my old Kyocera. Grab a dime and use it to quarter-turn the latch holding the battery door in place. Pop out the old battery. Drop in a new one. Use the dime to quarter-turn close the battery door latch. After 12 years, I never replaced that battery. It just worked. I think Kyocera went overkill on the battery size that was needed.
LOL. I think Amish country may still have some of those. 
They don’t go to waste. They all go to Africa and get put back into service. About 60% of the world’s computing devices are cellphones, mostly in areas without other sorts of service and sometimes without electricity.
Totally agree. Someday I’ll fix the thing just because, but there really is no excuse for how some of this stuff is made. Yeah, people want thin and flat and that puts constraints on the hardware. But they could still use screws instead of glue.
Actually, that’s a pretty good parallel to DEs – modular and easily swapped vs monolithic and wotinell is going on in there??