lattrommi

i think qgis might have the ability to do everything you require, however the learning curve is somewhat steep.

it allows you to import data from various maps, including openstreetmap, NASA and many more.

i believe there are free/open source topographic layers that can be imported or ways to add specific data.

it can draw layers, lines and shapes on top of each other with varying translucency and colors.

it can show non-mercator map projections such as stereographic, othrographic or even more obscure ones like the waterman butterfly or some of the ones from the list at the bottom of this page: http://www.quadibloc.com/maps/mapint.htm

if you are doing this for a fantasy world map and not earth, it might add even more difficulty but i’ve read people on forums claim they could do it, using another program with qgis and on windows only. i don’t recall much else since the windows requirement was a block for me. it’s probably possible to create the shapefile from scratch.

it has the ability to customize aspects of maps and mapped datum in many more ways that i am incapable of properly explaining, describing, using or understanding. i also have cognitive/developmental disorders, so it might be easier for others, however for me, it’s a map creation program i get lost trying to use.

There isn’t anything you need to know. It’s the opposite actually. You can now forget about graphics drivers entirely if you want. Unless it’s like, a job or hobby or something.

I use Mull on my phone. Haven’t gotten around to playing with Librewolf but it is on my list of things to do.

I don’t consider the addition to be an anti-privacy feature however. I’d like to see someone change my mind about that.

They didn’t, just like every other mainstream browser does. It was pretty lame. It was in the change notes but I don’t know too many people that read those anymore. Their explanation of the system and the ease to turn it off placated me. I have the feature on and have had it on since the day it was released.

That’s probably the better way of putting it. As far as mainstream browsers go.

Yeah, as I said it was pretty lame how they added it in. I will repeat that I think it’s still not as bad as how other mainstream browsers add unwanted features but I’m out of the loop there and could be wrong.

Strange, only once do I recall seeing a pop up from Firefox, which was letting me know another browser was trying to become my default browser which I did not do or want. So in that case it was useful, as it was Edge and I did not want Edge to be my default browser. That was years ago, back when I still used Windows. Not saying it doesn’t happen of course, you have links I could check which I assume show it does, but I have not personally witnessed it happen in a long time.

Yes, how amusing indeed. Unless you meant to type ‘assuming’? Either way, I’m more of a fanboy, not a shill. Shill’s get paid. Fanboys just like their product.

All the naysayers in these comments read like shills and if they aren’t, they really should read how the tracking in question works. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution?as=u&utm_source=inproduct

While it was kinda lame for Mozilla to add it with it already opted-in the way they did, they were still completely open about how it works from the start with a link right next to the feature in settings (the same link pasted above) and it’s far less invasive than the other mainstream browsers.

It can be turned off too, easily. It requires unchecking a checkbox. No jumping through 10 different menus trying to figure out how to turn it off, like a certain other browser does with its monstrous tracking and data collection machine.

With ublock origin it’s also moot, since ublock origin blocks all the ads anyways.

Call me a fanboy if you want, I wont care. Firefox is still the superior browser in my opinion.

I’ll throw in my vote for Manjaro because while it’s not perfect, it hits all of OP’s points nicely.

• arch based
• hard to break (but not impossible)
• biased a little towards Gnome but runs KDE and XFCE great too
• uses a curated rolling release

The last point is the most important. Rolling release means it updates regularly, so your packages will be mostly up to date. Curated means they do testing in an unstable repository. If an update breaks something, those changes aren’t pushed to stable.

I ended up with it after trying other distros but having trouble with my nVidia card. Manjaro’s MHWD tool installed their drivers easily (although slightly confusing with its unnecessary checkboxes) and more recently, I’ve upgraded to AMD and never had a single issue.

It’s not perfect but almost every issue I’ve had was located between the keyboard and the chair.

To add more possibilities/perspectives to the above:

The security question I’ve seen most in my life has probably been “What is your mothers maiden name?” which becomes fairly easy to guess with family history.

Ancestry information can reveal who is inbred.

It also can reveal politicians commiting nepotism.

Geographic location can show if someone lives in a redlined neighborhood or the part of town with all the mansions.

Simply the fact that an account exists on 23andme’s website, implies someone took the test, which indicates they (or someone they know) has disposable income. Enough to pay for such a test (initially I believe it was $400 but I could be wrong) and that also implies they have some form of internet access and that they probably own a smartphone/computer/laptop/some kind of technology they can use to access their account. Thus they could be targeted simply for having potential income/assets above that of poverty level.

If actual DNA data was comprimised, which I doubt happened but suppose it did, an advanced enough attacker could use that to plant evidence at a crime scene. Who would believe a whistleblower after their DNA was found on a rape victim? Who would vote for a politician whose DNA was found on a murder weapon used to kill dozens of missing persons? They can scream “fake news!” all they want to, once that seed of doubt has been planted, once enough people are made to believe someone is guilty of some atrocity, it is hard to shake that belief. The DNA evidence is there. It was tested by scientists.

I could come up with more far fetched scenarios too. I made a list of them once because a family member purchased one of the 23andme tests for me to take. They did not understand why I refused to take the test. The reason was because a decade and a half prior, I was charged with a crime. The crime doesn’t exist anymore where I live (illegal botany) but at the time it could have been a felony. I did not want to have a felony. Felons had their DNA added to a federal database to assist investigators in finding repeat offenders. I fought hard to ensure I was not convicted with a felony and succeeded by pleading to lesser charges.

The idea of having my DNA on file with a government agency like the FBI, CIA or NSA terrifies me. A malicious agent could do a lot of damage with it. They could invent threats with it to ensure I comply with their demands. The amount of possible damage they could inflict grows every day with new technology. DNA, gait and facial recognition, geofence data and an AI trained to make deepfakes, in the hands of a shadowy alphabet agency with little oversight, that’s fairly unstoppable by a single person. Imagine if anyone could get their hands on that. A disgruntled coworker. An obsessive ex. A hormonal teen child having a temper tantrum.

I know this is long and extreme in parts. I hope this helps people understand that DNA data is powerful and could be abused in unimaginable ways.

I am using Manjaro as well.

Are there Debian apps that you want to run but are unable to because Manjaro is Arch-based? I have read that it is not recommended to install programs compiled for Debian, that it is difficult to run them. Using a virtual machine is the recommended way to use them. Asking just in case but I do not think this is what you want.

Computers can only run one operating system at a time, unless you use virtual machines and hypervisors. Most operating systems are launched after the system uses a bootloader to get the system ready for the operating system. This is usually done by the BIOS/UEFI/firmware starting a bootloader, which then launches the operating system.

If you want a USB that you can plug into a machine that is already running, that has an active operating system like Manjaro or Windows or whatever, then have it start running Debian, like you would an Appimage or a Windows .exe program saved to a USB, that is not possible except maybe with a virtual machine program like Virtual Box or Qemu.

USB drives were not intended to be used as drives that run operating systems. It can be done, but it is not simple and can cause a lot of errors.

What do you need the USB for? If you can explain what you are trying to achieve with more detail, there might be ways to do it differently.

directly onto my USB

directly without having to reboot to run the installer?

You use “directly” three times. Remove all instances of the word from your post and reread it. Does the post make sense to you still? Does it have the same meaning?

I am not trying to be a dick, I want to make sure the word does not have a meaning I am not aware of in this context or if Linux is installable to a USB drive ‘indirectly’ but that does not make sense to me.

Can you rephrase what you are trying to do?

One way to allow for this would be a license that says if you sell them through an LLC or corporate entity of some kind, that should require financial support but if it’s you selling them in your own name or as a single owner business, with your reputation and liability on the line, then you should not be required to provide support. The other thought to include in a license is actual money earned from sales. Once a company earns, for example let’s say $1,000 or 1,000€ a month in profits, that’s when the financial support license kicks in and requires payments to the open source authors. Of course, that would require high earners to report their earnings accurately which is a different can of worms.

yeah that looks exactly like what i wanted, thanks! i probably should have asked my question a couple years ago but i was still very new to linux and didn’t quite know the lingo. i’m still not quite sure how < works in general but i get the pipe and other redirects at least.

putting it in .bash_logout doesn’t always work. something involving login shells i don’t quite understand yet but i’ll read more about it. i saw mention of putting exit_session() { . "$HOME/.bash_logout" } trap exit_session SIGHUP in .bashrc to make it always work but i also don’t understand trap yet either so i’ll look into that too.

thanks again, your reply helped point me in the right direction of things i want to learn!

is there a way to save commands from history? i tried to figure this out when i was starting to use linux regularly, to help learn commands and to make a reference for myself as to what the commands do. i’m familiar with things like man, info, tldr and others but i wanted to put things in my own words since i remember better that way.

what i’m wanting but can’t seem to automate: -save commands from bash history to a file with only the command and arguments used, no line numbers or time stamps. -filenames can be kept, but if filenames are removable easily, that would be better. -file saved in should have the list sorted with any duplicates removed and happen after any terminal session ends. -i’ve read about changing the prompt but not done it correctly and not sure if possible or the safest way. -i’ve tried using .bash_logout but it doesn’t seem to do anything and i’m not sure why.

this isn’t too important anymore, as i’ve grown more comfortable with linux and bash but it bugs me that i never got it to work. i can copy and paste more detailed notes of what i tried but i’d need to redact a bunch of cursing and frustrated whining.

This setup isn’t what I use, i had wanted to try as many monitors that i had ports for and this was one result that worked.

2 Sharp 18" tv’s at 60Hz, different models and one can’t do higher than 1280x720p so it was scaled 125%

LG ultrawide 34" 100hz

Asus 27" 75Hz

Samsung 42" tv scaled to 75% but I couldn’t get its refresh rate to change. it’s supposed to do 120Hz but i only get 60 Hz

since switching to wayland, i rarely have monitor problems and i love it, especially after switching to an AMD GPU. i had constant issues from my previous nvidia card.

side note, i’m super poor and all of these except the LG were given to me by friends who no longer had use for them. many of these friends do website design and ask me how their sites look occasionally. they can emulate different screens i think but they’re probably trying to show off or they know i have a huge variety of screens i can test things with. I have at least 6 other monitors from 4 different brands in 3 sizes and 3 different native resolutions with 2 that do rates other than 60Hz. two are CRT’s. now i’m probably trying to show off.

tl;dr: if you think this is too long, don’t read it.

near the end of 2004 i was given a computer that cost $100 at a garage sale. it had windows xp installed but it was not activated. i had also just gotten out of jail for amateur botany (growing weed) and was on probation. there were strict rules with probation and commiting any illegal act would have meant far worse sentences if i were caught. since i could not afford a windows key and did not wish to illegally pirate one as that put me at risk of prison (at least, in my head it did but this was unlikely) i looked for alternatives to windows. that led me to linux.

i should add that my memory of this time is not the best and any or all of this could be absurdly wrong but it’s how i remember it, however incorrect that may be. my brain’s memory does not work right.

at the time my only access to the internet was one hour at a time per day, through the local library. it was there that i tried to download linux onto a flash drive. i thought it could be installed like any regular windows program. i don’t think there were linux distros that even had USB installation support back then, although that might have been a motherboard limitation. i used a 1gb flash drive and saved a .txt file to the drive which i had copied and pasted man pages into, like ‘man man’ among others.

i don’t know what it was i downloaded for sure anymore but i believe it was a linux kernel, as in just the linux kernel source code. no DE or bootloader or anything else, i think it was a .tar.gz of source code in text files but i never figured out what to do with them. i didn’t understand what a .tar.gz file was until years later. i believed they were linux somehow, that’s all i understand. needless to say, i failed in my endeavor and that $100 computer ultimately became an oversized media player, forever in ‘you need to activate this copy of windows’ mode.

fast forward to 2009. i had completed my probation and finally was a rehabilitated citizen. i had established friendships with more tech savvy people than myself (but still not very tech savvy, they just played WoW a lot) and with their help, i built a computer from a tigerdirect barebones kit. one of my coworkers installed a copy of windows xp on it that did not need activation. i doubt it was a legitimate version but i was still too ignorant to care. i was reminded of linux at some point and to show off my newfound knowledge of computers, i decided to upgrade my system to a dual boot of windows 7 (courtesy of a local college) and linux mint. it was successful but i had also made friends with several gamers by then. linux gaming was fairly nonexistant at the time. i did log into the mint installation occasionally but i never did much with it and none of it involved the command line. i soon forgot about it entirely.

i built my second computer in 2012 and upgraded to windows 10, for free because i had started classes for computer science. i quickly learned that where i lived, IT jobs were non-existant unless you had military base security clearance, which was impossible for me due to my previous life of criminal gardening. i gamed heavily instead of attending classes and soon dropped out entirely. i spent a few years drinking heavily in a haze of depression. i quit drinking in 2016 and worked a minimum wage job a few years in a haze of depression.

by 2019 i had saved up enough to upgrade my computer. in the upgrade process i changed enough parts to trigger windows to believe i had an entirely new computer and it demanded i purchase a new copy of windows. i’ve learned since that there were ways around that and that i probably did not need to buy windows again but thanks to that and to my cheap, frugal nature, i decided to revisit linux once again. i installed linux mint. two days later my apartment was hit by 2 tornados, frying my power supply and bricking two of my three harddrives. one was a data drive with all my important personal files and the other drive had mint on it. i was left with a plain install of windows. this is when i learned how important backups are. it took me until nearly the end of the year to be able to afford a new power supply. early 2020 i spent a lot of time trying to recover accounts. because my landlord is a slumlord i was fixing a lot of my apartment as well.

in march of 2020 my mom gifted me my first smartphone. it was an android phone which reminded me of my linux journeys in days of old. i bought an SSD and a couple flash drives with a tax return. i started downloading distros while also downloading all the apps in the google play store. i rather quickly acquired malware on the phone which in turn spread to windows i think. within a couple days time, the pandemic lockdowns began, i became unemployed, my internet was shut off, my phone wouldn’t work and all i had was a flash drive with a few iso files of 64 and 32 bit linux distros. without internet, i had to rely on man pages to learn things. i couldn’t download anything. i couldn’t search the internet for help. i had lost my drivers license back in 2004 and while i had gotten it back, i had not been able to afford a car so i couldn’t drive to friends houses or the library for help. it was not a pleasant experience. there is no direction to the man pages. if i didn’t know something, i probably didn’t learn it. it did not help that i had an nvidia gpu.

i’ve been mostly using manjaro kde with moderate success since winter of 2021. i tinkered with a few other distros and made all the rookie mistakes. i really enjoyed puppy linux and always have a version or three on a flash drive and play with it from time to time. i’ve learned a lot and unlearned some bad behaviours. i quit videogames entirely as well as tv and movies, so i could focus more on learning. i still barely know what i’m doing and i make mistakes often. they aren’t critical mistakes at least now and i have a backup system that’s almost good enough.

last year it was determined that i am developmentally disabled. my memory, meaning the kind in carbon not silicon, doesn’t like to work properly. i tend to use repetition to force it into long term memory. numbers don’t process well either but i’m not counting that. the previous sentence should demonstrate that my sense of humor is also probably affected.

this became far longer than i expected. my linux journey has not been conventional. it has not been positive until recently but mostly due to my own mistakes and ignorance. if i could change something, i would have asked people for help more. i hope you enjoyed reading it and thank you for your time. have a nice day.

But pretty much everyone who heard about their ebook scheme agreed it was an awful idea.

That’s a false consensus in my opinion. Assuming ‘everyone’ agrees, will rarely ever be correct.

You are correct in saying that IA is not a library. In my opinion it should be treated as one, if not better. it provides free knowledge, much like a library, but unlike a library you do not have to give back because of the ability to produce a nearly infinite amount digitally.

the point of lending has become useless for anything that can be digitized. i think copyrighting needs to end. creating and not sharing “intellectual property” is an attack on humanity. the arguments in support of copywriting are all rooted in the same concept that copywriting itself is mostly based on: greed. before it was a resources issue as well. it still is but with diminishing requirements that should and could be trivial in this digital world we have now.

now is my chance to brag that I’ve been running HML on a eee pc netbook that’s mounted on a wall in my bathroom, for about 4 years now, as a music player and in case of emergency internet searches when showering and it does its job wonderfully.