The closest modern communications standard would be Matrix (which is why I can take what I have in Commet (client) and move it to Sable or FluffyChat (other clients) for instance, because they follow the same standard).

Centralized platforms do not deal with open standards because it literally goes against their premise - User retention via vendor lock-in. You can scrape to an extent, it won't ever be perfect, and if everyone did it, it would get patched in some way to be limited.

This was always the Discord trap though - Discord is a treasure-trove of knowledge that's now behind a walled garden thanks to "community leaders" who thought they understood the importance of community longevity. Many are scraping whatever they can moving from one walled-garden just to move to another - Make it make sense.

(FYI, Element is also a Matrix client, though it's business/enterprise focused)

There are 2 things to consider.

First, demand. Us being vocal about it is one thing, but the real demand may be low. We moved our community from Discord to Matrix - While a direct migration wasn't possible, we setup a Discord bridge for 6 months during a transition period which was invaluable. The bridge kept all our chat history which we can still see today even though the bridge is down and the discord server got nuked.

Second, priorities. Unless a PR is submitted by a voluntary, the 3 platforms you mention have limited resources and higher-priority items that need to be worked on.

What is it with these people that when thinking of Linux base their decisions on decade-old knowledge and go straight for Ubuntu. Ubuntu isn't what it used to be, competition actually happened and we're all the better for it. In the meantime, Canonical F'd up, and Ubuntu should not be anywhere near the top of the recommended distros list.

Want something that actually works, go Linux Mint. Have much newer hardware and want to game, go with Fedora or an arch-based distro like EndeavourOS.

Don't go Ubuntu. You never go Ubuntu.

Py-Charm isn't a Python interpreter, it's an IDE. It has a purpose.

Not strictly the same, but one of the most amazing feats to me in this topic was done by the Sacred community over at DarkMatters.

Apoligies for the wall of text, but I consider it worth a read.

Sacred 2 in particular never had its server code open sourced, leaked, or anything of the like as the studio went bankrupt before anything could happen, this was around 2010.

Over the course of a decade a few volunteer devs would pick up a project where using tools like wireshark etc they'd essentially sniff traffic sent by a client attempting connection to a server that didn't exist, and using this, devs would literally try to GUESS what a server would respond, and what a client expected, essentially trying to build out the backend infrastructure from SCRATCH.

Fast forward to 2020 or so and progress was still being made, not only that but things were beginning to actually take shape. In 2021 (IIRC) one dev in particular had the general frame of a working server and continued to work on it. Fast-forward and since 2022-23, you're able to run both a LOBBY for multiple servers and an actual GAME SERVER yourself, self-hosted and code is open.

I've ran a couple servers using docker since, where I played with friends, and being able to replay that childhood game, with friends, one I thought I'd never be able to share the experience for, is a dream come true.

Another neat thing is that it was reverse-engineered in windows, but the docker containers literally run WINE to translate windows calls to Linux and it just works.

Knowing I'm able to in 2,5,10,30 years pick this up, and not only that, but replay with friends means this work of art has a great chance at preservation.

If you're into power metal, there's a band called Blind Guardian, they not only did they the main theme for the game, but the band's members have an entire quest-line in-game that culminates with an in-game concert. Again, a work of art worth preserving, and now, it can be shared.

A solution to this is Nostr. One identity across the entire network.

Twitter-like Platform/client dies overnight? No problem, all data still there.

Reddit-like platform/client dies overnight? No problem, all data still there.

PC dies overnight? No problem, all data still there.

Data is sync'd across multiple relays, you can run your own, and clients are interoperable.

It's my go-to now, for everything. A person's posts, their followers/audience, chats, etc never needs to be migrated.

Media is stored using the Blossom protocol which was created for Nostr.

V4V(Value 4 Value) is also a thing, so instead of just Likes/Reactions you can tip/Zap Sats (Bitcoin over Lightning) but that's optional.

Go Fedora for Gaming with new hardware. If you're a couple generations behind in hardware, Mint will do just fine.

Fedora gets new hardware support faster along with newer drivers, same with Arch and Arch-based distros (like EndeavourOS, BazziteOS)

Use GrapheneOS and switch to PIN authentication didabling fingerprint auth, especially when travelling abroad.

Self-hosted Matrix.

It still needs polish, but it's on a good path. Meanwhile others are centralized by a single authority with an easy target painted on them for government coercion along with multiple other attack surfaces, and even information easily traced to PII. Also, not everything is encrypted. A lot of metadata is left out of E2EE. And those servers/providers have that data.

By contrast, a drop in the ocean is far more likely to not be targetted from the outset, making pretty much any matrix server (potentially with the exception of the matrix.org one, but it's ok to treat it as a demo anyway) a really good choice in that sense.

Leaving a comment here on behalf of HIMYM: Bowl.

Already moved my community to Matrix/Element last year. Haven't looked back.

Arch was the distro that got me to stop distro-hopping. It's stable, it has a rolling release, and it's mine (as in, customizable, manageable).

I guess, if there's anything I wish I'd known off the bat is that the Arch documentation is probably the best available. So much so, a LOT of it applies to Linux in general and not strictly to Arch.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Main_page

If something breaks, READ the error messages, understand each component, and check the wiki, there's a very high chance the troubleshooting section has the exact issue laid out.

Because it may not be illegal today, but may become tomorrow. Even if not, it still becomes linked to your PII.

Nice to see Matrix's Element client on there. Has definitely become my go-to and even managed to get friends, family, and my gaming community on there, replacing Discord entirely

Don't get the EU flag though, we should be pushing for global sovereign alternatives. Thos could indicate the inverse in that these applications/platforms are not useable outside EU which is incorrect, and unfortunate.

Switch to an open source alternative so you don't have to deal with services shutting down the same way. Some alternatives include Wallabag, Karakeep, Floccus, Otter.

While this is true, it's worth clarifying that GrapheneOS in particular is able to run apps sandboxed, so they can't communicate with eachother as they can on a stock OS.

Having said that, no one should expect that their right to privacy is given (or fought for), unless they take it first. Yes, laws and all, but user education is the bigger issue.

Users were onboarded onto the Internet before they had an understanding of the differences between cyberspace and meatspace, and how that could affect them. Placing the blame (and solutions) solely on third-parties is a dangerous mistake.

I also have a Surface GO 2 and been running Linux for the past 2 years. In the beginning the only "trouble" was that you you needed the surface-linux kernel for drivers, but that's no longer the case as all drivers have been upstreamed to the mainline kernel.

For distros, anything goes as long as it has a recent kernel. I just go full Arch (EndeavourOS is also a good choice).

What you probably want to pay attention to is the desktop environment - i've found Gnome works best for touch and tablet devices KDE requires some tweaking.

For 2, check the flathub store, you might be impressed with what you find for note-taking and PDF editing. Definitely some good options out there for Linux.

3 is a preference. Generally use internal storage for OS and external for data. Linux doesn't take that much space, so if with 120GB you're having storage issues, just ditch windows, problem solved, lighter system.

4 Yes it works.

It's not centralised though. It's quite decentralised actually.

As for your "nazi bar problem", I'd suggest you review the relays you connect to. That's the beauty of free speech, and power of choice.

This is why I recommended a Shield for which there is an actively maintained LineageOS. Yes, it's an investment, but well worth it nowadays.

You VPN may have an option under settings called Split-Tunneling - Most well-established VPN providers will have this. This allows you to set the local subnet for your network, and it'll bypass the VPNs so that local connections are local. Check it out. Otherwise, what you propose works, yes, as long as you're okay with having that laptop as a single point of failure for your content. At least get an external drive and periodically backup to it as well, and have that drive elsewhere. Good enough starting point.