u/Technical_Rich_3080

What are pros and cons (and tradeoffs) when choosing between XFCE and MATE?

How is Linux Mint's implementation of XFCE different (or the same) as vanilla XFCE?

(Also, how can one easily duplicate Mint's implementation of XFCE to another distro?)

What is the best distro (and why) for XFCE?

In the 1990s, Minitel had a US office (in New York, if I recall correctly) that offered Minitel service in the United States. They'd mail out Minitel software on request and the customer could open an account.

Does anyone have any experience, knowledge or insights to share regarding this?

What has changed, so far, at AOL since the Bending Spoons takeover? What changes do we know (not assume) will be happening?

Is AOL Mail still hosted on Yahoo Mail servers and platform?

What are the considerations to help determine whether to install vanilla Debian or to install LMDE?

How does using the Q4OS .exe Windows installer compare to installing it via traditional methods (USB, etc.)? Is the final installation, if installed with the Windows .exe installer, any different than if you had installed it with a USB? Is one way "better" or more efficiant than another?

Does any other Linux distro offer a similar Windows .exe installer that's available from Q4OS?

And how does Q4OS compare, overall, to Linux Mint?

Which will make a greater difference to the end user?

Will a user feel a bigger difference between switching distros, but keeping the same Desktop Environment?

Or by switching DE, but keeping the same distro?

Which will make a greater difference to the end user?

Will a user feel a bigger difference between switching distros, but keeping the same Desktop Environment?

Or by switching DE, but keeping the same distro?

Which will make a greater difference to the end user?

Will a user feel a bigger difference between switching distros, but keeping the same Desktop Environment?

Or by switching DE, but keeping the same distro?

Open source projects are legitimately forked all the time, for many different reasons. From what I've read the initial beta release of HopToDesk didn't credit RustDesk as the source of its fork, which fairly raised the ire of the community, but when it was pointed out it was quickly remedied with crediting RustDesk in the HopToDesk "About" dialog box. If so, what remains, if anything, objectionable about the fork itself?

But, more importantly, the primary topic today I wanted to inquire about was the technical aspects of HopToDesk. From what I've seen, ​HopToDesk replaced RustDesk's custom networking stack in favor of a WebRTC-based stack, which is much more effective at traversing tricky enterprise firewalls and strict NAT configurations that can sometimes block the protocols used in RustDesk.

​If you do not want to set up your own server and just want to download the app and connect using the service's free public servers, ​HopToDesk maintains a globally distributed network of public servers on Cloudflare. They do not throttle or limit the speed of these servers, and the service is free for both personal and commercial use. RustDesk also provides free public servers, but their public servers can often be slow or laggy, oftentimes simply not connecting. I've seen that from personal experience, being unable to connect via RustDesk's public servers (when the user is not self-hosting), as well from reports by others. So, for non-self hosting users, it seems HopToDesk wins hands down.

Now, for using an open-source self-hosted server , RustDesk is reliable and well-documented and is the gold standard. However, advanced server (centralized fleet management, audit logs, Single Sign-On and a web console) are behind RustDesk Server Pro, which is closed-source and requires a paid license. HopToDesk offers three different ways to self-host, a traditional Linux server application, an AWS instance, or deploying via a Cloudflare worker. Unlike RustDesk, HopToDesk does not lock fleet management features (including their web console) behind a paid "Pro" tier. However, HopToDesk's self-hosting documentation and setup process can be much trickier to get working smoothly compared to RustDesk's highly polished Docker containers.

HopToDesk features an "Invite Request" system, which allows you to send a connection prompt to a remote user instead of asking them to read out an ID and password, making it much easier to support non-technical users. It also supports remote printing on macOS (not just Windows), runs on older/niche systems like Windows XP, ARM64, and FreeBSD, and includes an integrated ticketing system.

RustDesk has a massive developer community (over 113K GitHub stars), which means bugs are patched quickly. It supports true unattended access on Linux Wayland environments, offers highly advanced video codec controls (adaptive bitrate, hardware rendering), and allows Pro users to custom-brand the client with their own logos.

All things considered, it seems to me that having additional choices in the market is beneficial for the community. And HopToDesk does bring to the table features and performance that, in various circumstances, are on a higher level or at no cost for users.

How do they compare to each other?

How do they compare to each other?

What is the quality of using RustDesk without self-hosting, by using their public servers? Is it high quality and can you easily and readily connect anytime via RustDesk, without self-hosting?

In addition to the above, how does using non self-hosting RustDesk (i.e. via their public servers) compare to using the proprietary commercial remote services, such as AnyDesk, TeamViewer, etc.

And how does the practical day-to-day use of RustDesk compare between self-hosting RustDesk and non self-hosting RustDesk?

1. Is using alternative Desktop Environments, other than the three official flavors, as viable an option under Linux Mint, as doing so with most any other Linux distro?

2. Can you have installed multiple DEs simultaneously (and is doing so not recommended)?

3. If you use a DE other than one of the three official Mint DEs, do you lose anything?

How does the battery of a laptop generally last when it is using Linux, compared to when the same laptop is using Windows?

I've read that most laptops are highly optimized to increase battery lifetime per charge under Windows, whereas under Linux (by default) it is comparably much worse.

How can you highly optimize the laptop battery usage with Linux? Does optimizing reduce its performance in any other usages? And, once optimized for Linux, how close will the battery be compared to (the same laptop) using Windows?

Does anyone have experience purchasing and using glasses from Payne Glasses to share or recommend?

How do folks who have used it like Softmaker Office? (Or its freeware version, FreeOffice.)

I know merely discussing this subject results in downvotes, but I'm raising this issue to legitimately understand both, people's sense on the topic as well as a better technical understanding of the matter, so this is a risk I'll take.

Open source projects are legitimately forked all the time, for many different reasons. From what I've read the initial beta release of HopToDesk didn't credit RustDesk as the source of its fork, which fairly raised the ire of the community, but when it was pointed out it was quickly remedied with crediting RustDesk in the HopToDesk "About" dialog box. If so, what remains, if anything, objectionable about the fork itself?

But, more importantly, the primary topic today I wanted to inquire about was the technical aspects of HopToDesk. From what I've seen, ​HopToDesk replaced RustDesk's custom networking stack in favor of a WebRTC-based stack, which is much more effective at traversing tricky enterprise firewalls and strict NAT configurations that can sometimes block the protocols used in RustDesk.

​If you do not want to set up your own server and just want to download the app and connect using the service's free public servers, ​HopToDesk maintains a globally distributed network of public servers on Cloudflare. They do not throttle or limit the speed of these servers, and the service is free for both personal and commercial use. RustDesk also provides free public servers, but their public servers can often be slow or laggy, oftentimes simply not connecting. I've seen that from personal experience, being unable to connect via RustDesk's public servers (when the user is not self-hosting), as well from reports by others. So, for non-self hosting users, it seems HopToDesk wins hands down.

Now, for using an open-source self-hosted server , RustDesk is reliable and well-documented and is the gold standard. However, advanced server (centralized fleet management, audit logs, Single Sign-On and a web console) are behind RustDesk Server Pro, which is closed-source and requires a paid license. HopToDesk offers three different ways to self-host, a traditional Linux server application, an AWS instance, or deploying via a Cloudflare worker. Unlike RustDesk, HopToDesk does not lock fleet management features (including their web console) behind a paid "Pro" tier. However, HopToDesk's self-hosting documentation and setup process can be much trickier to get working smoothly compared to RustDesk's highly polished Docker containers.

HopToDesk features an "Invite Request" system, which allows you to send a connection prompt to a remote user instead of asking them to read out an ID and password, making it much easier to support non-technical users. It also supports remote printing on macOS (not just Windows), runs on older/niche systems like Windows XP, ARM64, and FreeBSD, and includes an integrated ticketing system.

RustDesk has a massive developer community (over 113K GitHub stars), which means bugs are patched quickly. It supports true unattended access on Linux Wayland environments, offers highly advanced video codec controls (adaptive bitrate, hardware rendering), and allows Pro users to custom-brand the client with their own logos.

All things considered, it seems to me that having additional choices in the market is beneficial for the community. And HopToDesk does bring to the table features and performance that, in various circumstances, are on a higher level or at no cost for users.

If a person ignores jury duty notifications, whether it is the original questionnaire to determine eligibility, or whether it is the notification giving a specific date to appear for jury selection, or whether it is a notification of failure to appear and demanding an appearance to justify such failure or to remedy such, or simply ignoring all of the above notifications, what are the consequences?

The question here isn't what the theoretical, legally possible, consequences that a strict reading of the law allows, or even what the judge theoretically can impose as a penalty; but rather in the real world what do courts do about such failures - or, more likely, what they do not do.

The reality of the matter is that, generally, all of the above notifications are sent via U.S. Mail, and no one probably needs to spell out the reputation for proper delivery by the U.S. Postal Service. Furthermore, the jury notifications are mailed first class or bulk mail, without any proof of delivery. And even if it was delivered to the address, it may have not reached the named recipient. They could easily have "got lost in the mail", either in actual reality or in an alternative reality, without proof otherwise.

So at the end of the day, if push came to shove, and a court did demand answers for someone's failure to respond or failure to appear, their claiming to have never received it would, seemingly, be a get out of jail free card.

But, as far as I can tell, the facts on the ground in the real world is that courts, probably for all the reasons outlined above, do not even attempt to enforce any penalties against those that simply never respond. (Other than every couple of years, somewhere in the vast United States, you'll read a story where a court wanted to make an example, so they target someone who egregiously and blatantly made clear he didn't care to respond and disposed of such a summons.)

Likely this is also a direct result of courts having greater priorities than this kind of enforcement. And, perhaps, I'm not sure how much they even want persons who don't want to serve, to actually be forced to serve on a jury against their will. Such folks are prone to vote in the jury room with whatever vote will end the case the quickest, rather than vote with what serves justice based on the evidence. Also, especially in large jurisdictions and cities, there's simply too many people who never respond or show up for the courts to have the resources to target even close to one percent of that group with any realistic consequences.