this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
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libre

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Welcome to libre

A comm dedicated to the fight for free software with an anti-capitalist perspective.

The struggle for libre computing cannot be disentangled from other forms of socialist reform. One must be willing to reject proprietary software as fiercely as they would reject capitalism. Luckily, we are not alone.

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Resources

  1. Free Software, Free Society provides an excellent primer in the origins and theory around free software and the GNU Project, the pioneers of the Free Software Movement.
  2. Switch to GNU/Linux! If you're still using Windows in $CURRENT_YEAR, take Linux Mint for a spin. If you're ready to take the plunge, flock to Fedora! If you're a computer hobbyist and love DIY, use Arch, NixOS or the many, many other offerings out there.

Rules

  1. Be on topic: Posts should be about free software and other hacktivst struggles. Topics about general tech news should be in the technology comm or programming comm. That doesn't mean all posts have to be serious though, memes are welcome!
  2. Avoid using misleading terms/speading misinformation: Here's a great article about what those words are. In short, try to avoid parroting common Techbro lingo and topics.
  3. Avoid being confrontational: People are in different stages of liberating their computing, focus on informing rather than accusing. Debatebro nonsense is not tolerated.
  4. All site-wide rules still apply

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apparently the £30 I paid in 2010 for a copy of windows 7 isn't good enough for Bill anymore, so I need some questions answering before I switch to Linux: (hexbear.net)
submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Linux is still for nerds but I hate windows 11 more than I hate being uncool so I'm just going to have to step down my rizz and learn more computer stuff.

  1. My 3 concerns are, in order, gaming (mostly through steam or fitgirl), playing TTRPGs through Foundry Virtual Tabletop and Discord, and image editing (but really simple image editing. more paint.net than GIMP). What distro would be best for this? What are the actual differences in distros beyond appearances? Is it worth installing the Steam OS, or is that still really only useable with handhelds?

  2. Can I just shove all the data I want to save on an external drive, install my chosen distro, and transfer stuff back on? Will the external drive need to be formatted in a specific way first? can I just slot stuff like program settings back in the new system or will I have to convert them to a different file format?

  3. Do I have to buy the thigh highs or do they just appear? Will it still work if I don't wear them? I don't like wearing socks so I'd prefer a distro without them if possible.

If it helps I'm running a Ryzen 5 2600 and RX 7600, and my favourite colour is purple.

Edit: Thanks for the answers everyone, I'm going to do a bit more reading on distros before choosing one, but I have a better idea what I'm looking at now.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago
  1. Most Steam games are playable out of the box nowadays thanks to proton, you should check ProtonDB just in case before buying games though. Not sure about the rest, but I think there are some decent image editing software if you do some research, I usually just use GIMP in the rare occasion I want to edit something more complex than drawing a red circle around something.
  2. Most of your files should be ok after you set up the OS and mount your drive correctly. Programs should be installed again from the start though.
  3. They just show up on boot, after shutdown they dissappear.