Occam's razor dictates that it's just overly permissive settings by default and an owner who doesn't know how to turn off mic access

Edit: yeah yeah there’s flathub and stuff but that’s more of a last resort, optimally, you want to get it the correct way.

There's also Homebrew, which is more like the AUR than any APT repository or other package solutions. The formulae are built from source by homebrew, so it's basically like yay or, in your case, Paru in that regards.

This doesn't necessarily negate the point of your post, but it's still a myth that I bought into for a long time, so let's nip it in the bud: there is no "correct way" to install apps/programs/packages. There may be a correct way for your use case, but everyone has different use cases, even people using the same OS on the same hardware. I prefer system installs like .deb packages because it minimizes disk space and memory usage, whereas someone might prefer sandboxed packages like flatpaks or AppImages because of the security implications; hell, some people might opt for containers like docker or k8s for the compartmentalization.

On to the point of your post: I just want a set and forget OS. I don't care if it has the most recent updates or bleeding-edge features, I don't care about squeezing every last drop of benchmark numbers out of my hardware. I just want to boot up my PC and get to doing the things I use a computer for, not maintain my OS and configure and reconfigure and rereconfigure settings.

Linux newbies regularly come on here, in this exact community, and lament about their arch install, levying the above complaint. The regulars' responses usually boil down to "shouldn't have gone with arch if you didn't want to get your hands dirty." I'm not gonna say it's the same people, but it is the same userbase who will gleefully squeal "install Arch" when someone comes in asking "hey, I've never used Linux before, what distro should I use?"

"Use our distro, but all your problems are because you refuse to tailor your computer habits and schedule around the OS' needs" is not a community I'd particularly want to be a part of either.

Also, Pacman is an absolute migraine if you go a week without updating. I have sunk hours into fixing dependency issues only to get so frustrated I just uninstalled the app because Pacman would hold up 1300 updates (not hyperbole) over a single dependency issue.

Outside of controlling and rewriting the protocol: steal the keys used to generate the route or take over control of the server that hosts it

Alt + . inserts the last argument from the last command run into the current line. I find it helpful all the time.

less can be invoked directly, without having to be piped from cat: less <file> is mostly equivalent to cat <file> | less
I have considered making an alias/function that automatically determines if the file is longer than the terminal, using something like wc -l and stty -a | grep -oP "rows \d" and then either uses cat or less depending on that... but I already use sharkdp's bat, which has that baked in as well as many other conveniences

Don't forget tail -f <file> which is kind of like watch tail <file>

If you're going to have du, I would also have a section for df, I use the latter more often (but probably because I have like 5 mounts for my OS). Using them in combination is basically what all the gui disk usage analyzers do; something like df -h "oh, /var's almost full" (as previously mentioned, I have different folders on different partitions), then du -ah /var and so on to find problem areas

The "installing from source" section works maybe 50% of the time. It assumes a configure script, which isn't always the case. I've had a lot of source that comes bundled the way a .deb does: basically a compressed filesystem that assumes the $CWD is / (basically, if you uncompressed it in /, all the files would go where they needed to be). Sometimes they use language-specific build systems, so you might need go and rust and... Maybe it's best to just keep it your way and look up the rest, but do keep in mind the thing I said about compressed filesystems

find is great if you want to reindex everything from square 0; or if you only need to do small directory/tree. If you have the extra space to spare, install locate: it indexes the files beforehand (as a cron job) and yields results more quickly for searches that span entire filesystems; the only downside is that you have to manually reindex (sudo updatedb) to locate files installed the same day

In the Extracting, Sorting, and Filtering Data section, you might consider adding in sort -u and uniq which fill their own (overlapping) niches. sed and awk may be a bit more than beginner, but they are endlessly helpful. tr can be a useful shorthand for when cut and sed don't quite cut it, but you don't want to build a full in-line awk script.

Finally:

<command> 2>&1 <file> | Output and errors from <command> are redirected and appended to <file>

Should read "Output and errors from are redirected to " because the single > overwrites the existing file, as opposed to >> which, as you noted, appends to the end of the file

Yes

Tainted: P 0 5.15.0-94-generic #104-Ubuntu

What module(s) is tainting your kernel, and is that what's causing the txg_sync to hang?

From Graphene's FAQ

Many other devices are supported by GrapheneOS at a source level, and it can be built for them without modifications to the existing GrapheneOS source tree. Device support repositories for the Android Open Source Project can simply be dropped into the source tree, with at most minor modifications within them to support GrapheneOS. In most cases, substantial work beyond that will be needed to bring the support up to the same standards. For most devices, the hardware and firmware will prevent providing a reasonably secure device, regardless of the work put into device support.

To get down to your actual reservations about privacy: when you flash a new Graphene ROM onto your phone, you're replacing all the software down to the low level stuff. The AOSP devs, google devs, XDA devs, and graphene devs refer to it at flashing the firmware. The only google code you're running is the Android bootloader, which goes for any smartphone.

Further, if you look into it, "Google" pixels aren't actually manufactured by Google. This means their hardware is about as trustworthy as any other phone's. As to why Graphene only officially supports Pixels, I do not fully understand their needs/reasoning, just that they have determined it is the best for them.

Basically my point boils down to: if you have issues with the hardware, the same should go for any smartphone. If you're bothered by google software, you needn't worry insofar as you trust the Graphene devs. If you consider the Pixels "tainted" by association to Google, then the same should go for Graphene and any other ROMs, since the kernel is based off of the AOSP—a google run project—and any android phone, for the same reason.

All that being said, CalyxOS supports a slightly wider variety of devices.

What is a review if not just an anecdote from someone who got paid to write it.

It's good to know, as the Librem 5 was one of the ones I'd seen the aforementioned practice of burying the lede in reviews of.

None. The sad, infuriating truth is that the makers and devs are a lot like this comments section: focusing on how good of a computer it is (or what apps it has).

You do a little digging and beneath all the hype there is a line buried in every review, so as not to raise suspicions, that says something like "now the call quality isn't perfect, but..." and what they mean is "it will sound like your friends are playing a full concert on a kazoo trying to talk to you."

Time and time again. Every linux-based, privacy-respecting, freedom-loving phone team out there seems to have conveniently neglected to make the phone good at being a phone.

They do, if you consider that this article doesn't stand alone at all and read the blurb at the very bottom in italics acknowledging that it's part of a bigger series

How Paying Attention in Grade School English Class Solves Climate Change: A Modest Proposal

I'm begging people who didn't pay any attention during English/Literature/Language class: establish your thesis early. (See what I did there?)

Hell, I'm begging internet commenters that consistently fail to write short comments and experience self-awareness about it to do so too.

Something I first noticed in video essays is that it takes them about 60% of the video to establish the thesis that the title begs. The wadsworth constant has been extended to twice its original length it seems.

That's a great thing!

... if you want your audience to tune out/skip most of the content you spent days/months/weeks crafting. Otherwise you might want to establish why your topic is a problem your audience should care about. (See what I did there?)

But in a bold move, this article's author takes 90% of the article beating around the bush with a history lesson that we just have to take on faith is important. Just saying "those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it" is not enough motivation to then delve into what amounts to little more than a loosely connected list of names and dates.

As an author, you have to make the audience care about the history before dumping it on them, and you have to tie it back to the thesis... SO ITS PROBABLY BEST TO ESTABLISH THE THESIS EARLY ON!!!!

Disclaimer: I'm a huge History of Computing buff, it's so fascinating to see the evolution of technology from the abacus to the android... But I hate, Hate, HATE when essayists don't give the audience a question/problem/thesis to keep in mind and tie everything back to. It just comes off as meandering rambling.

Look, it's okay to just write about your special interest and ramble about it at length because it sets off the dopamine receptors in your brain's reward center; not all knowledge needs to have an immediate use to be valuable, sometimes its just fun to learn. But if you're going to open with a claim that there's some worldwide problem that you can solve in the largest, most eye-catching part of your essay (the title), you better fucking deliver on establishing the problem and the solution.

Otherwise you have an issue with communicating effectively, which is a much bigger problem than people not knowing which bell Dennis Thompson hurd in 1984.

Do you see what I did there?

so it got me wondering what the privacy implications would be if I hypothetically were to use it. I imagine it would be terrible!

I don't see why. Dial-Up just describes how the modem connects to a remote server, not what security protocols are possible once the connection is established