Accidentally fried the windows install on my first laptop in 2005 or 2006. My friend told me to try Ubuntu and I loved it. A few years later I had an art school GF and she introduced me to Macs. I wanted to be cool so I upgraded to a 2008 unibody MacBook. I used Mac OS for a while until apple started to really wall off the garden and the laptop was no longer supported. Got a new Dell XPS around 2016 and got back on the Linux train. Not hopping off again except maybe for a BSD.
Have a ready Qemu image of a Windows install. Have a live distro that has (or can install to RAM) Qemu. Boot Windows using Qemu in the live environment, and VFIO-passthrough your NVME as a PCI device. Install and run the official Windows-based update tool, which now has raw access to the SSD.
I'll never buy Western Digital. I've given them too many chances and owned many over the last 20 years and they consistently fail. Even the more expensive ones I've owned had something stop working in them.
I thought that the trick with exposing the raw hardware to a VM was the coolest thing ever, since it negates this entire “do their special tools support Linux” issue. And you do it once every 6 months, maybe 4 times in total, until releases taper off.
But I don’t want to deal with Windows at all. Something like this may be acceptable for existing “pre Linux” hardware to have a solution after migration.
But I need new hardware in an environment where no Windows is left.
Hi! Wrong sub? No worries, our subredditcommunity (!openstreetmap) is right here as well!
Did you also know that Apple Maps and Bing Maps use OSM data too in some areas, for some types of categories? Bing even has cloned an OSM-editing program.
Furthermore, you can use mapcomplete.osm.be to add shops or other POI. (Obligatory shill as I’m the main dev of that one ;) )
MKLinux on my PowerPC Macintosh when I was ~14. Read about it online. Got my mom to take me to the book store to look for a book on Linux. They had none. Booted to a command prompt and had zero idea what to do. Didn’t run it again until (many) years later.
I’m curious where you live that there isn’t much mapping data. I’ve used StreetComplete for a few years, everywhere I’ve been wherever I’ve travelled all over the world. Wherever I go, there’s already so much data and it’s already so detailed, that the only stuff StreetComplete can give me is “what kind of paving stones are used on this sidewalk?” and “how many floors are in this apartment building 3 blocks away?”
I’ve used StreetComplete for a while. It tends to ask me about things that are important to disabled users, like whether pedestrian crossings are designed for blind people or for users of mobility devices. It feels good to help empower them to navigate the environment, even if I never meet them.
StreetComplete is perhaps the easiest and maybe best way to contribute as it is on rails. Constraining input for newer users is great. If your area is saturated with information I look at that as a win for the open community as a whole, but I understand the desire to add more.
There is SCEE which has advanced features and more editing options but I haven’t explored it yet. I am just happy something like StreetComplete exists to allow me to contribute in a meaningful way without adding garbage data.
I prefer Organic Maps for mobile mapping. I feel like Street Complete focuses too much on things that don’t matter much, whereas Organic Maps editing is more POI focused.
Hey I have never contributed to OSM and I just looked at f-droid.org/en/…/de.westnordost.streetcomplete/ on fdroid and there is a warning about “This app promotes or depends entirely on a non-free network service”. Do you know which non-free network this is referring to?
When you first switch you might feel overwhelmed because you’ll have to develop a sense of how things work in a non-Windows world. But, after a bit you’ll realize you feel in control of your computer, maybe for the first time ever. It may seem like a small thing, but the realization that I finally “own” my computer and control the software that is installed on it, how it runs, what programs do what tasks, etc… was really surprising and made everything worth while.
As for switching, I had been exploring the idea. One night while writing an important work email on my Windows 11 pc in outlook (also work required) my pc just randomly shut itself off and, of course, outlook did not save the email draft. Deleted the windows virus the next day and my pc has worked much better ever sense.
If you make the switch you’ll be able to find lots of great help with technical issues online in places like this.
I use it all the time with OSMand. and i have contributed to OSM for years. I just had a look - i start in Sep 2010 (13 years!) and all of my edits (except for a humanitarian tracing excersice for mozambique) i have been to. it is a niice spread:
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !openstreetmap
I tried linux and went back to windows to many times to count, mostly in the halcyon days of late dialup/early “Broadband” (back when broadband was a whopping single meg down), always for the same reason… Had a problem I couldnt find a solution for, and the few times I reached out to linux focused IRCs and stuff, well, so say that my head was bit off would be putting it lightly, which always ultimately lead to me reinstalling windows95/98/xp
Thankfully, there was a perfect storm of Valve dumping dumptrucks of money into linux, creating proton, and Windows 7 reaching EoL that I finally said fuck it and switched for good around… late 2018ish I think? I still kept Windows 7 for dualbooting for games that didnt work via proton, but eventually I was booting into windows less and less as more games just worked on linux with proton until… about 6 months ago, I realized I hadnt logged into my Windows 7 drive in over a year, and finally wiped it.
I regularly use OSM data through Organic Maps (mostly for larger European cities). The app is really polished and is a joy to use. So far I’m not missing any features from Google Maps.
I’ve also updated some faulty business hours for some restaurants so I guess I’ve contributed back.
E: With the recent developments in the world of free online services (YouTube blocking ad-blockers, Google lying to their customers about its TrueView ads, Twitter rate limiting free access, the Reddit API fiasco), I wonder how much longer we can take free services like Google Maps for granted. Having an open alternative may become even more important in the future.
I like osmand because during several lanes it highlights the lane to go to. I noticed organic maps had something similar today when i tried it, though ill need to do more testing to see all the features.
I think organics maps has a a good clean ui. Improvement woukd definitley be compatibility when using the voice for navigation, a bit laggy but maybe ill need to adjust rhvoice. Also im seeing if it has the show the next turn on a small icon of some sort.
Osmand is good overall but it can get too cluttered real quick. Its been getting a bit slow but maybe some tweaks will help.
Also i have contributed to openstreetmaps especially toward small businesses to make it easier to find.
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