Hello, I’ve been in the free software cult for about a year now, and yet, I feel more lost than ever.

I have pretty much switched to all free software other than Whatsapp, which I only use to contact family and people that ignorantly don’t care.

I’m having troubles finding a mobile alternative to Signal, which I can talk to people with, but everything I’ve found is only available on computers.

I use my phone for communication, chess, searches, and navigation, so I’m tied to a device that actively spies on me, and unlike normies, I can’t ignore it.

Solution for all would simply be to just let them go, but I’m already in a shit-hole socially, so that’d just make things worse.

I’m still using a 5 year old lenovo thinkbook I got as a present, and I have plans of replacing it with something I can put GNU boot and use a functioning system with parabola on like a Lenovo Thinkpad T400, T500, X200, and X200T. However, I do mechatronics, so I’m going to have serious issues with CAD, compiling, and ethical machine learning, which I have to do for most projects. Even with a lightweight suckless dwm setup, it’s going to suck at everything.

That’s not even considering the security risks, which are especially bad considering I do activism on topics that are outright banned in countries that I live in / visit.

Have you experienced such a phase? I would really appreciate your advice on getting past this roadblock and finding a device to switch to both mobile and desktop for better privacy.

Edit: user asudox infromed me that matrix was available on mobile, so now I’m using a client called fluffy chat available on both andriod, IOS, web, and GNU+Linux systems which is great.

  • ambitiousslab@lemmy.mlEnglish
    9·
    10 hours ago

    I’ve had similar feelings before. You’re not the only one to struggle with this. You are pushing against the grain and doing something, aligned with your values, that 99% of people don’t know about.

    What helped for me is separating what I can control from what I can’t. Everything on my device, that I personally choose to use, is under my control. So that is all free software, downloaded from system repositories, because I care about that. Meanwhile, everything I can’t control, I just gradually try to improve over time.

    Here are the things I feel I can’t easily control:

    I bought a laptop many years ago without free firmware for wifi, bluetooth, microcode etc. I like using devices as long as I can. Ok, no worries, lets just replace it with a Thinkpad next time.

    My employer requires me to use Zoom, and some proprietary VNC client on my own device (on top of a load of proprietary software that I run on their devices). I don’t really have a choice here, unless I quit my job. So, I give in the short term, but do what I can to minimize the damage, running it in a dedicated VM. For the long term, I try and keep an eye on FOSS job boards and also network with people in the FOSS world (I’m quite bad at this, but trying to get better).

    Likewise, some of my friends haven’t switched over to XMPP, which is my network of choice. Eventually, the people closest to me did, but many did not. So, I bridge those who haven’t into XMPP (via Matrix, for now, but looking to remove it eventually), and decided that I don’t want anyone “new” to contact me through the proprietary networks (I haven’t set up “enforcement” for this, an autoresponder probably, but this is the plan). The good news is that the proprietary networks always screw up eventually. When they do, your friends will get pissed off for their own reasons, and that is your chance to offer them the alternative. I never push, but let people know that I use XMPP. Some become genuinely interested, others you have to wait until they get screwed over by the proprietary networks.

    Now bear in mind I am more interested in software freedom than security. So your priorities might be different. But the short story is: don’t beat yourself up over this. It’s a journey and you are pushing against the rest of society. What I do is just try and improve my setup, whatever that means to me, gradually over time.

    • William@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      3·
      10 hours ago

      That is super relatable and exactly what I’m experiencing now. So, on your next device, do you plan on getting a thinkpad that can run GNU boot? How do you plan on dealing with the performance I plan on getting a portable X200T when I can as a portable device and a desktop at home, but I still don’t really know of a desktop that is as free as possible, while still being able to handle CAD and ethical machine learning, which as mentioned before, are necessary. Also, why are you not using matrix? As an alternative for signal, I downloaded and plan to use a matrix client called “fluffy chat”. I have also heard of XMPP, but why use it over matrix, which is more well-known and (based on my knowledge) easier for normies?

      • ambitiousslab@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        8 hours ago

        My next laptop will probably be a Thinkpad T480 from Minifree. But I reckon it will be a while before this one breaks in an irreparable way.

        CAD + ML is certainly difficult, maybe that needs a dedicated machine you only use for that? But that will increase costs overall. I’m also not sure how to find PC parts that I know won’t need dedicated firmware. So that part is definitely more tricky, I’m sorry I can’t be more help here :(

        As for Matrix and XMPP, I started off with Matrix and found it pretty good for bridging lots of different networks together. But, over time, I came to prefer XMPP for a few reasons:

        • Ultimately, I just don’t trust Element, and they do so much of the work. They complain that people are dependent on them and don’t give back, but they were the ones that created this dynamic in the first place. They are a single actor who own the dominant server, clients, and flagship instance, and can really push around the ecosystem in a way that works for them.
        • XMPP is more community oriented, no one person can push through changes either at client, server, or server operator level. XMPP is based around extensions and there is an expectation that not every client or server implements every extension. That brings the con of inconsistent experiences, but at the same time, it is much more resilient over the long term (Matrix is now having to deal with the same fragmentation problems that XMPP started experiencing, and building solutions for, 20 years ago).
        • XMPP’s network is less centralised, there’s not a mega-server like matrix.org with a lot of power. When matrix.org goes down (which happens semi-regularly), there is a big impact. If a single XMPP server goes down, it doesn’t cause nearly as big a problem. And, there aren’t those mega-instances with scaling problems, so the servers don’t go down as frequently anyway.
        • XMPP evolves more slowly and gracefully IMO, as it is already more established (might be a con depending on your worldview). I run debian stable and an update across the Matrix network broke images on my Matrix client. That just doesn’t happen on XMPP, you can lag behind the leading edge for a couple of years and things don’t break even as the network evolves.
        • I find XMPP easier to self-host - again subjective, but I could just install prosody via Debian’s archives, and once it was set up, I didn’t have to touch it. I update it with the rest of my server every 2 years, and I don’t fall behind the rest of the network or miss out on much in the meantime. Meanwhile, I have to pay much more attention to my matrix server, I get the software from upstream and not from my distribution, and there are more regular changes that I have to pay attention to.

        As for advantages of Matrix:

        • They have a flagship client that is available everywhere and has a decent and consistent UX. That name recognition makes it easier to get people to sign up. The XMPP community have done a lot of work to make signups work easily in a decentralised way, and projects like Snikket aim to solve that name recognition and consistency problem, but it is not 100% perfect yet.
        • Bridge software to proprietary networks is more actively maintained in Matrix. There is work going on to improve this in XMPP, but I think many in the XMPP community moved focus from bridging to making the first-party experience better.

        Many of the pros and cons are based on values (e.g. living on the leading edge vs using something more mature, preferring community based solutions vs commercial ones etc.), so I totally understand and support people who use Matrix instead. Ultimately, both ecosystems can cooperate, learn from each other and are millions of times better than the proprietary networks. That said, above is why I came to prefer XMPP.

      • zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        3·
        9 hours ago

        I’m not the person you replied to, but a lot of my friends that pushed us to initially use Matrix have grown unhappy with the direction it’s gone and really dislike the clients. I personally host a private Matrix server and I am fine with it for now, but I’m able to avoid most of the drama and bugs by simply not moving to the latest and greatest. I always liked XMPP in the past, but I haven’t used it in a few years. I am glad to see it picking up support and hope that some of the things I didn’t like about it (which I can’t seem to recall at the moment :) ) are no longer problems or at least may get some traction on resolving.

          • zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            2·
            9 hours ago

            I’d take that page with a grain of salt, especially since it is quite old and not all of it valid anymore, but I agree that generally you hear the good things about Matrix. Even disregarding what that site has to say, I’d give XMPP a look. XMPP likely isn’t all rainbows either, but I like the traction it is getting and it did a lot of things right in my mind.