I don’t have specific experience with the tools you list, however on googling it looks like Ableton Live does work under wine. Wine is what underpins playing windows games on Linux too; it’s very powerful and effective.

You can install Mint into a VM environment on your current PC (such as Virtual Box) and see how you get on with software you really can’t live without. It won’t run as fast as real life in a VM but you should get an idea whether any tools you can’t live without can work.

As for OneDrive there are unofficial clients to get it working with Linux if you want to sync to your local filesystem. However Microsoft doesn’t officially support it beyond Web browsers, so if you want something slick and supported you probably would be better migrating to other solutions. You’d certainly be able to migrate with the unofficial clients but I’m not sure I’d want to rely on them long term as things xna break if Microsoft unilaterally changes something.

There are PPAs with different builds of ffmpeg for Ubuntu. It also depends what codecs are needed as to whether this is even relevant?

Bearing in mind some (many) encoding codec libraries are not installed by default as most people don’t need them but can readily be added from the official repos via apt or synaotic. Each codec is usually provided as a library of its own; ffmpeg is more than just one set of binaries. There is a big difference between an incomplete build and incomplete default install of all available libraries/codecs. Most people don’t need or want every possible encoding codec installed by default.

However some codecs are more strictly licensed and may need to be installed or acquired via different routes - that is the nature or proprietary software (as on Windows).

Which codes are you saying are not available in Ubuntu official repos?

For the Flatpak apt upgrade how about “flapt”.

I use Proton mail. I like the suite of products (mail, calendar and storage), and it’s been reliable. They also seem to be secure.

You can use your own domain with them which is pretty standard but a good idea if you want long term email independence/remoce vendor lockin.

I also like that Proton mail are going down a non-profit route and have open sourced their apps. I’m not suggesting they’re perfect, but these moves and the scale of their set up makes me feel happier to use them.

K9 isn’t an email provider? It’s an email app. A good one but still.

Flatpak is supposed to be a sandbox, so if there is a vulnerable dependency then in theory any attack would be limited to the sandbox.

However, it depends on the software - some Flatpak need quite low level access to use, and in that case an attack or mlaware could get into the main system. And unfortunately Flatpak itself has vulnerabilities which cna negate the whole idea of a sandbox.

Flatpaks should be using up to date secure dependencies, but the reality is many do not. I would not rely on Flatpak for security. Even fully up to date Flatpaks can be insecure, and Flatpak itself have vulnerabilities that have needed fixing. And for many Flatpaks it’s not even clear who is maintaining them.

Flatpaks are useful for deploying software that’s just not available in your distros repos. But when deploying any software outside your repos - including App Image, build from source or 3rd party repos - you are opening your system up to security vulnerabilities. That’s the nature of installing 3rd party software. Flatpak offers some reassurance compared to some methods but it’s far from perfect.

If security is your prime concern, then Virtual Machines may be more secure route to sandboxing software (if done properly). Building from source would be the other option, as it means you take ont he responsibility for security by using the latest code including for dependencies. But there is no perfect option, it’s always about balancing risk vs convenience.

It’s also worth noting that software repos are also not perfect. But good distros invest a lot of time and effort in keeping them as up to date and secure as possible, usually via the hard work of volunteers.

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Then you have to trust the person you are communicating with has turned off windows recall. That has to be the starting position.

Tools will come to block or break windows recall but it will still be based on trust that the recipient is using them. Privacy centred apps like Signal wouldn’t want windows screen shotitng every message for example. There are many apps and tools including in the professional sphere that would not want their data leaking via recall so it will come.

Unfortunately it may come late in the professional realm probably after scandals break. Employers using recall data to investigate staff for example - it’s bound to happen eventually.

My own organisation, a huge health organisation, has opted in to CoPilot. It’s crazy in my view, even if our data is ring fenced in some way. I don’t want private patient information being used to train Microsoft shitty tools, or stored on their servers. Regulation and the law is way behind when it comes to this stuff.

I think a lot of people misunderstand because in so many TV shows and movies it’s a trope for someone to get in trouble and be bailed out. The fact that they’ve got a court case to attend and that’s not the end of it is often left out.

I know this is random, but I like your writing style. You manage to throw in flourishes of language and colour, even dramatic biblical references, when talking about nothing more than a broken fridge.

As others have said, gaming is thriving - AAA and bloated incumbants are not doing well but the indie sector is thriving.

VR is not on the verge of collapse, but it is growing slowly as we still have not reached the right price point for a mobile high powered headset. Apple made a big play for the future of VR with its Apple Vision Pro but that was not a short term play; that was laying the ground works for trying to control or shape a market that is still probably at least 5 if not 10 years away from something that will provide high quality VR, untethefed from a. PC.

AI meanwhile is a bubble. We are not in an age of AI, we are in an age of algorithms - they will and are useful but will not meet the hype or hyperbole being banded about. Expect that market to pop and probably with spectacular damage to some companies.

Other computing hardware is not really stagnating - we are going through a generational transition period. AMD is pushing Zen 5 and Intel it’s 14th gen, and all the chip makers are desperately trying to get on the AI band wagon. People are not upgrading because they don’t see the need - there aren’t compelling software reasons to upgrade yet (AI is certainly not compelling consumers to buy new systems). They will emerge eventually.

The lack of any landmark PC AAA games is likely holding back demand for consumer graphics cards, and we’re seeing similar issues with consoles. The games industry has certainly been here many times before. There is no Cyberpunk 2077 coming up - instead we’ve had flops like Star Wars Outlaws, or underperformers like Starfield. But look at the biggest game of last year - Baldurs Gate 3 came from a small studio and was a megahit.

I don’t see doom and gloom, just the usual ups and downs of the tech industry. We happen to be in a transition period, and also being distracted by the AI bubble and people realising it is a crock of shit. But technology continues to progress.

Why “dr*g”? That’s a wierd bit of censorship - making a joke about drugs and sex workers and feeling the need to censor the word drug? I don’t get it?

After being forced to standardise to usb c and be responsible for some of the e-waste it produces, apple has finally relented.

They fought tooth and nail against the EU regulations to force charging standards. I don’t care if they up sell cables to some people; most people will reuse what they have and thats the whole point of the regulations.

Regulation works.

A - space travel would be harder. The difficulty with travelling into the solar system is gravity, not the vacuum. You would still need to launch something with enough energy to escape the earths gravity. Aeroplanes are not escaping earth’s gravity - they’re constantly using fuel to stay a certain distance from the earth’s surface but they do not have enough energy/power to reach escape velocity.

So if you filled the solar system with gas you wouldn’t fix the gravity problem. What you would do is add more friction which would cause drag on space ships, and slow travel between destinations as well as require even more fuel than present. Once a ship is in space currently, “aerodynamics” is not an issue; it’s all about gravity and velocity. Throw in air, and you have new problems in drag, shape and as a result likely fuel consumption to stay on course or reach as far as you want to.

The article is a bit vague on the pros and cons of reflective LCD screens.

It seems to be pros that it has a good refresh rate, can be used without a backlight so is good outdoors and indoors in a bright room, and maybe better for your eyes due to the lack of the backlight/blue spectrum light. It also may offer better colour depth than e-ink currently.

The cons are not clearly addressed but presumably battery life is worse than e-ink but better than a backlit display such as OLED or AMOLED, that colours are still not as good as other LCDs even if better than e-ink, and it seems cost (although that may be due to the small market at present).

Also there is no obvious innovation noted in the article so its not clear what has changed about these displays? It sounds more like some small companies are just using the displays in a new way to try and mimick paper. But maybe thats wrong or will change?

Maybe this would compete with e-ink if cost comes down. The battery benefit of e-ink with a static image is one of its big benefits, to the point that its being used for shelf labels in supermarkets. E-ink isn’t going anywhere but good to have more choices in the tablet space.

I get what you’re trying to say but I disagree with this. Software can be a barrier to switching OS but it very much depends on the individual user’s needs - it’s not as easy as substituting open source for closed, and is only part of the difference anyway. For example, I use Outlook at work; Thunderbird is great but it is in no way a substitute for Outlook. Similarly, I use Microsoft Office 365 at work; OnlyOffice is in no way a substitute for an individual user (it can be for a whole business or for personal use, but not if you’re tied in to an organisation or employer using Office). If you’re tied into those platforms with work, then for occasional use you can just use the online versions of Microsoft Office in Linux via a web browser. And if you need to work from home or do more, then realistically you need to have Windows and access to the full suite installed locally.

But software does not preclude switching to Linux; for example I dual boot between Windows and Linux on my home PC. I have an M.2 drive for Windows and another M.2 drive for Linux. I rarely use Windows at all now, but when I do it’s if for some reason I need to be doing work related stuff from home or rarely if I can’t get a game working in Linux. In Linux I can do all my web browsing, social media, video streaming, music listening, even gaming and I know I’m doing so privately and securely.

I’d say the best way to switch to Linux is to switch to Linux. New users do not have to be “all in” - they can dual boot between Linux and Windows (or MacOS and Linux), and then have a low level of risk to try out the OS. It can even be beneficial in itself as they can compartmentalise work and free time by OS. And if they don’t want to dual boot, then just try it out by virtualisation.

It’s a configuration error in Grub.

This has guidance on how to fix Grub; the 3rd answer on the page is the most comprehensive on how to fix this: https://askubuntu.com/questions/397485/what-to-do-when-i-get-an-attempt-to-read-or-write-outside-of-disk-hd0-error?noredirect=1&lq=1

So is the issue your co workers or is really that it bothers you so much?

Maybe the real thing here is you need to learn how to let the crazy and annoying wash over you. Because at the moment you’re letting that leak into your personal time - you’re thinking about things that are annoying you when really, why should they?

They’re “winning” not because they annoyed you at work, but because you’re letting it bother you when you’re not at work.

There are skills in being able to ignore things that annoy you, or learning to let things go or even compartmentalising parts of your life.

In this situation I’d save a copy of the sheet to my phone in a standard format and use a non google app. The file itself can be backed up to on line storage and remain accessible from multiple devices but you remove it from googles walled garden.

On android if you want open source then Collabra is a full office suite based on LibreOffice. Alternatively LibreOffice Viewer is the official libre app - ok for viewing files but with an experimental mode for editing (not really ready for editing yet).

WPS Office is a free office suite with add or paid version which has a good reputation.

Microsoft Office is also an option.

If you want to stay with google sheets and just view the file offline then try saving a copy to your phone in a different format and view that with the Google spreadsheet app (if it can still do that). But I’d take the pop up as a sign that its time to move on from googles shitty products.

Unless you’re specifically wanting to play with a different OS then Debian again. Makes much more sense to be using the same version of Linux and all the software ypu use rather than potentially different versions.

Also it will be simpler to maintain as everything is the same.

If you do want to play / test another distro then Mint has a low learning curve. FreeBSD is more different but you could easily try it and switch to something else if you don’t like it. Its different but not so much that linux users would feel totally lost.

Probably the most confusing thing for linux user trying FreeBSD is that Bash is not installed, and BSD uses sh instead by default. Bash can be easily installed and set as the default shell which will give a lot more familiarity. But otherwise it’ll feel like a familiar modern complete system, and you can use the same desktop environments you’re familiar with already in linux.

EDIT: You did say “backup” in your title. If that’s the main use case then definitely Debian again. If your laptop breaks or is stolen it makes sense to have a familiar system to pick up. Also important to sync and backup your data so it can be picked up on the other laptop. If backup machine is your focus then I’d say same OS and look more into data retention and retrieval between the two laptops, and ensure your important data is continuously backed up.