If you don't know where to start, a great starting point would be:

• Get yourself a virtual machine - that can be Qemu or maybe VirtualBox, these are free. There are other options available, depending on the OS you use.
• Go to NetBSD.org and download the installation image (it can be a USB image or a CD image)
• Create a virtual machine, add a virtual hard disk, and the NetBSD image you downloaded to it, and start
• Have the NetBSD website with the manual open. It explains lots and lots of things. You'll learn a lot about your computer by reading it, and it can be useful even for other OSes (if you decide that NetBSD is too hard)
• Install NetBSD, and then configure a graphical interface for it, and maybe some software, like free office suite (LibreOffice or maybe Abiword+Gnumeric), or incredible graphic editors (Krita and Inkscape). They might not necessarily be what you're used to, but they're worth trying, and you might like them enough to use them on your normal OS.

Good luck!

2/2

RE: https://tech.lgbt/@nina_kali_nina/117441043503225633

The new policies for the Linux kernel make it more or less impossible to support a slop-free fork of Linux, so if you're worried about the reliability of your system level software, or have ethical concerns about LLM usage on your computer, the time to act is, well, now.

If you have time this weekend, I recommend you to try one of the slop-free systems: NetBSD, 9front, Haiku, or OpenBSD. If you're adventurous, you could try new AlpineBSD, or research smaller systems, like RedoxOS or FreeDOS. If you don't feel adventurous, you might want to check out anti-AI Linux distributions, like Elementary or Gentoo.

There's no "one solution that fits all". But there's a solution that I chose for myself, and that's NetBSD: it gives me the most freedom, it supports most of my hardware, and can run a great deal of software I need. It's not easy to run, but it's a great learning opportunity. There's quite a few folks around using BSD and capable of giving hints and advice, so if you feel stuck, toot about #netbsd.

1/2

The rubber on my old wheelchair wheels is finally wearing down. I have been using it as my "indoor" wheelchair for awhile now because its quieter but now there are black streaks all over my floor. The thing is like 4 years old and the breaks are starting to fail on it too.

I dunno what I should do. I could always go back to using my nicer wheelchair full time inside or I could find another moderately priced one to replace it with.

I don't really have a ton of money but it is kind of convenient to have two wheelchairs that are designed for two different things. I also really, really, really, really need replacement tires for my good wheelchair the community bought me, so maybe I should just put my money towards that instead.

Does anyone who uses manual wheelchairs have any advice or input? How many wheelchairs do you have? Do you have a indoor and and an outdoor chair or do you just focus on having one all purpose chair thats really solid? If I have limited resources I'd rather just start putting my money towards things that make sense instead of wasting it on something I don't really need.

"What'd you do today?"

"I learned how to shout "Oh FFS" exasperatedly in 29 different languages."

"Seems like that'll come in useful."

"Already has."

"Got a URL?"

Original Mastodon thread: https://things.uk/@eclectech/117071859569448514

Resulting art: https://eclectech.co.uk/ffs

#MicroFiction #FFS #OhFFS #TheFFSProject #FFSProject #translation #cursing #swearing #sweary

One of my favourite things about trains in wales:
The ticket machines have a dedicated "LLAN" button on the destination input

I'm giving away all my Sparc hardware:

2x SparcStation 10s
1x Lunchbox form-factor 32-bit SparcStation, maybe an LX? Basically a single processor SS10 in a lunchbox form factor with a microSparc CPU
1x Ultra 1e that doesn't boot with a graphics card
1x Ultra 5 with no cards or any other accessories

And a bunch of other random related stuff including some HDDs for the Ultra1e, several sBus graphics cards, an sBus ESP wide SCSI card, some random SCSI cabling and adapters, and an mBus HyperSparc CPU.

This is free to anyone who can either:
- collect it from the inner west of Melbourne
- or lives anywhere within ~15km of a line between the Melbourne and Geelong CBDs that is accessible by car (if you're not sure, ask)

I'm not going to split this up, so if you don't want all of this, please give away or recycle the rest.

I'll update this post when it's gone.

(Please boost for reach, I'd really like to give all of this away instead of recycling it)

#freetoagoodhome #sparc #sparc64 #sparcstation #sparclinux #giveaway #fleamarket #ultrasparc

RE: https://cosocial.ca/@mhoye/117439272746491687

Remember; Free Software contains everything from sleepy hamlet cottage industries, to full on industrial processing facilities

Linux is an industrial workplace. You can smell it. No regard for workers falling into the machines, waste materials piled up in the corner and neighbouring communities impaired by pollution. It has a focus of manufacture above and beyond anything else

Smaller projects like Inkscape have a managed community, where manufacture is secondary. And it shows for and against

wasn’t sure if i could pull off a pencil skirt or not so i drew my fursona wearing one (they/them only)

#netbsd install party this weekend, anyone? 🎉

@Kiloku here's many of the games that you can play on #openbsd https://pobsd.chocolatines.org/

By my reckoning, we're only 18 games away from 2026 having as many new #msdos releases as 2025. If you like DOS, and you like #gamedev, and you want to see DOS become a more popular indie game target year after year, the MS-TRES jam awaits: https://itch.io/jam/ms-tres #mstres

PARADE STRUGGLES TO VICTORY DESPITE DISGRACEFUL SCENES

#content_review #netbsd @netbsd #art #comic #runbsd #unix_surrealism

I forgot to mention "cuboid of yeast-leavened dough with one or two pieces of dark chocolate" in the list of content warnings, sorry

I found a zine I made in 2023 in one of the drawers, and decided that it is good enough to be published as-is.

It's 6 pages/16 megabytes of type-written hand-illustrated essay on the experience of pain, bread, paint, with a dollop of hyperfocus on "what's important".

Content warnings: graphic descriptions of physical and mental health issues, reference to suicide, pretty clouds on the paper, terrible doodles, holes in the paper that can't be seen on the scan

https://ninakalinina.com/notes/pain_hires.pdf

I found a zine I made in 2023 in a drawer. I don't remember if I published it

Wow that's a cool band name

Achievement unlocked: "scare your doctor by telling them how you really feel". 😖
Was told to not push myself so hard for two weeks 😓 will try

#2786

An icon concept for a new community for #yuri artists that I'm starting to put together. If you're an artist/writer and are interested, send me a message!

Support my work https://patreon.com/shinmera

#creativetoots #mastoart #haruna #yukari #onesies

@nina_kali_nina @lispi314 @linear I ran into some issues with firmware and the ramdisk on my actual laptop which I managed to resolve by luckily finding a bit about radeon drivers crashing due to inaccessible firmware on the mailing list. My Linux experience got me around that, and I realized I might've been more prejudiced than I realized. There's no clevis here but I bet I could get ssh decryption going... Anyway, I smoothed out my notes a bit for presentation:

https://indigoparadox.zone/tutorials/netbsd11c.html

My last day at Apple will be October 19th. I am searching for a new role looking forward.