privsecfoss

I think bluetooth or 2.4 mhz is better than IR. Coming to think of it mine is a china something with keyboard on the side and remote on the other using 2.4 mhz. So point of line is not needed which is nice.

+1 Kodi. Been running it for ages on an old laptop with a infared remote with USB dongle. Kodi is set to autostart. Pretty hands off and can stream to it from local sources using Kore for android.

EDIT: Can stream from local AND online sources using Kore ex Newpipe (Youtube).

Monopolies

+1 Bron/Broen. I am a big fan of Scandinavian series, and can also recommend:

• Follow the Money (Bedrag/Deception)
• The Killing (Forbrydelsen)
• Trapped
• Exit

Nice. Upgraded a Thinkpad, installed Linux Mint and gave it to my dad. I have not heard anything from him about it for a couple of months. Was reminded of it with your post.

So wrote him right now and asked how it was going, and he replied that he loved it and uses it every day.

And that he had not had any problems he could not solve on his own. He's 70 and a windows only heavy user - until now 🙂

As you said. Compelety painless.

I don't where you live. But almost all of bigtec US cloud is problematic (Read: Illegal to use) for storing or processing of Personal information according to the GDPR if you're based in the EU. Don't know about HIPPA and other non-EU legislation. But almost all cloudservices use US bigtech as a subprocessor under the hood. Which means that the use of AI and cloud is most likely not GDPR-complaint. Which you could mention to the right people and hope they listen.

Agree on privacy. And why bother when Intel/AMD have their Management Engine (ME) and AMD their equivalent.

But why support a company like Microsoft when they have a long history of prioritizing profit over user freedom (FOSS/EEE), security and privacy?

I applaud Linux on as many laptops as possible. But given Microsoft's history of EEE, bad security practices and multiple and on going privacy violations I would really not recommend using anything Microsoft. If you must use fx Surface I would recommend buying a used one. Or better yet a used Thinkpad or similar enterprise laptop used.