There are just two subs I check about once every two days, but I’m yet to log in again after I disconnected my account last month. I used to only visit it through Libreddit as the UX is better anyway but now that one’s gone too…

For me it was quite a different journey, I started a few years ago by bumping approximately at the same time in r/declutter and r/zerowaste, which even though might seem to be contrasting (and I would be lying if I said that I had and occasionally have problems in balancing the two mindsets!) I still argue that there’s an overlap, with decluttering being for me a prerequisite towards a lower-impact lifestyle and the latter helping to maintain a clutter-free living space.

From a more environmentally conscious lifestyle then came the interest in simple living, and only from there I started reading more about minimalism. All of those things resonate a lot with me and with the life I want to live (also because I had mostly the opposite examples growing up, and I took too much time to realize how badly it influenced me), although I generally don’t consider myself a minimalist. It’s more that I have my definition of what “simple living” means to me and having less stuff means to having less to worry about - so, yes, I agree in feeling that they are interconnected, but I don’t think minimalism can be a goal in itself.

That said, a big part of the reason why I’m interested in all of these four themes is essentially political: to not cave in to a society designed towards making us consume (with all of its social and environmental implications). And on a more personal side of things, my definition of simple living, as an atheist and materialist, in the philosophical sense of the term, is that my life will always be shorter than I want, thus having less unimportant stuff, less distractions is to me an imperative in order to make the most out of this short time.

Reading the article and reflecting on online spaces I’ve visited, I think it reaches a good conclusion but stopped just short of saying it out loud: anti-consumerism is an inherently rebellious stance and the whole point of aestheticizing simple living is to make it consumable, thereby negating any possible opposition. Even the point of

the slow-living aesthetic online presents a life very few people have access to; […] rich white people can rebrand the privilege of working less into something that’s somehow morally superior

is simply the perpetuation of the consumerist status quo, it’s no different from “celebrity culture”, the topic changes but the structure and the goal is still the same. It’s the same with minimalism and minimalist furniture and aesthetics; with zero waste and/or plastic-free living and greenwashing, and the list goes on. Perhaps decluttering hasn’t been taken yet? Although I see it more as an action to reach a more specific goal, so at least for me it’s somewhat different. But I sadly wouldn’t be surprised if someone has find a way to making the activity of decluttering an object of consumerism.

Thunderbird on the desktop; K-9 Mail on Android.

Definitely not, first of all I love pastel colors and, on the more practical side of things, at least for touch interfaces I do prefer to have some padding: even on larger screens (my current phone is 6.7") I tend to prefer larger and more padded interfaces to avoid hitting the wrong one (and that’s the main reason why I don’t like to type on a phone that much).

So I might even be in the minority but having a control center with larger but less buttons on each page is exactly what I prefer, I don’t mind having to scroll if it’s easier to toggle what I need to.

I agree, also the holding back of packages just for the sake of waiting probably doesn’t make it more stable, despite what the devs say; also having 300+ packages updated at the same time might make it worse for troubleshooting in case something goes wrong.

As someone who actually started with Manjaro back in 2020 before moving to EndeavourOS after 9 months, I would say that there is indeed a steeper learning curve as you don’t get for example a GUI package manager (Pamac is awful and even as a newbie I used it for maybe three days before I started to use the CLI, but a Linux beginner might want one) and the fact it is a true rolling release means you need to do some more research and maintenance, so I wouldn’t call Endeavour a distro for absolute beginners, unless one is determined to learn a lot about how a computer works… but again one shouldn’t probably use a rolling release then; Manjaro just tricks you to believe it is easier, but it probably is only if you don’t use the AUR.

Maybe Garuda is more beginner friendly than EndeavourOS while avoiding most of the problems Manjaro has? Although I’ve never used it as I don’t see any advantage over Endeavour, and I’m not a fan of excessive out of the box theming and Chaotic AUR enabled as default…

Manjaro was the first Linux distro I used as a daily driver, from October 2020 to July 2021, when I switched to EndeavourOS. To be fair the main reason I switched was all those previous mess-ups by the developers and the troubled past, which I didn’t know of when I moved to Linux. In the year or so I used it, I didn’t have any messed update or crash myself.

I would say it’s still a fine distro for beginners who want to try a rolling release (as EndeavourOS is imho better in every way, but it doesn’t come with any GUI package manager so I wouldn’t call it a distro for absolute beginners), but can’t see any other usage case, as it’s especially risky if you want to use packages from the AUR.

I have an HP LaserJet P1005 from 15 years ago which mostly works fine with Hplip except that every once in a while it asks me to reinstall the proprietary plugin needed. I’m taking note of how other brands seem to work better but to be honest I print so little since I digitally sign everything that once I run out of toner it’s far cheaper for me to have something printed in a shop than to replace it.

The only reason I reluctantly keep my account is because of a few niche communities I lurk and sometimes comment in. And I’ll add that Reddit is usable thanks to the old interface + uBlock Origin and third-party apps on mobile (and we all know what’s happening next); I’d call it “alright” just as a euphemism for “not (yet) as bad as Facebook or Instagram”.

The decentralized and community-driven model that essentially guarantees Lemmy being free from big corporations creating the ad-centric hellscape of centralized social media. That, and the UI is much clearer and feels lighter, even compared to Old Reddit.

I started using Linux in October 2020 with Manjaro KDE (not including trying out nearly every major beginner-friendly distro in VMs before installing it on bare metal), then I moved to EndeavourOS - still with KDE - in July 2021 and am still on that same install.

Same, I’m especially hoping to see Infinity for Lemmy someday.

I had been lurking on a few Lemmy instances for years (more or less since mid-2020 when I started getting more interested in FOSS) and with the Reddit shitshow I finally decided it was time to join, so I was already quite familiar with the concept of instances and how the Fediverse works on principle.

I’m slowly exploring more to find interesting communities to interact with, and hopefully there’ll be more incoming users from Reddit creating more niche spaces.

As someone who definitely was guilty of starting/wanting to answer to posts then not doing it, I had never thought of it before in terms of viral and non-viral content.