I used Linux 10 years ago, but then due to job or corp. and needing Teams and Outlook I was forced to uses Windows. Now with corp job over I was finally able to switch to Linux this week (Fedora + KDE). Loving improvements made in the last 10 years, KDE will always have its quirks, but it is fast and smooth with no crashes yet. I got Claude to make me a migration script which worked brilliantly, haven't needed to boot Windows yet. Browser sessions and everything worked like nothing had changed. All my various ssh / putty configs migrated to Konsole, Thunderbird carries on like nothing has changed. Ahhhh freedom!
Strange. I switched to Linux +25 years ago. My setup became quite minimal; right now I use IceWM for the most part. GNOME3 was always useless; KDE also changed since Nate "I need more moneys!" took over (see his donation daemon or the more recent "systemd-only" tied with wayland-only garbage that KDE succumbed to).
Linux is good in that you can combine things that work, so it is more flexible than windows. But desktop wise I don't see it becoming really dominant; GTK is now a GNOMEy-only toolkit. Qt is too busy focusing on their own business model. Desktop Linux is not useless, but it is really just sub-par compared to Windows. I also use Win10 on a second computer; I don't like it but I use it for testing. Linux lacks decision-making power focus (and corporations such as IBM/Red Hat are selfish, so these will never reach any "breakthrough" like the infamous Desktop of the Year, which I heard will come next year together with GNU Hurd ... I think).
> Desktop Linux is not useless, but it is really just sub-par compared to Windows.
Each to their own. My experience is the opposite (I use KDE). I have to use Windows at work and it's always such a pain. At least Windows 10/11 finally has multiple workspaces natively and some keyboard shortcuts for managing windows (ironic), but I would have preferred to stay in Windows 10.
Now Windows doesn't even support proper suspend anymore and it won't stay in the "modern standby" either. Constantly waking up and doing god knows what with fans screaming. When I take a look what it's doing, task manager claims that nothing resource intensive is going on. I'm guessing it's hiding some internal processes. It calms down when I put it to sleep again. Sorry for the rant, I better stop before I start.
yes the flaky sleep is what did it for me - laptop would randomly boot up at 2am, bright lights and whirring fans. Thought it was a virus! Seems like Fedora has cracked the hibernate/sleep issue, possibly due to good intel driver support for my Dell and finally Linux has better hibernate, sleep and wake than Windows 11 (ymmv!)
I actually have been lucky since even my laptop from 15 years ago already worked well with Linux and suspend while Windows didn't (wasn't OEM Windows anymore). I have also had multiple desktops that have _mostly_ had no issues with suspend either: only nvidia has given me grief on some setups when sometimes the screen would be blank when waking up, but I figured out workarounds for that.
I resurrected my wife's 13 year old Sony Vaio as an emergency laptop recently with MX Linux. I had previously tried Ubuntu and also Zorin Lite on it, both worked - but slowly and things like hibernate were broken and freezing up if left unattended.
MX is amazing on it, it runs as fast as I remember XP did when the laptop was new, hibernate works perfectly, screen dimming, extending display over multiple monitors and handling unplugging a monitor fine...all the things that Linux has been known to have issues with on random hardware.
I have now put in a bigger SSD and 8 more GB of RAM and the laptop is a great little media centre and simple gaming machine for the kids. I'm tempted to setup dual booting my Dell with MX now, it's a great desktop and project
I was 4 when it came past, I remember going in full cowboy gear late in the evening (9pm?) to Signal Hill in Cape Town to watch the comet over the ocean. Perfect starry cold evening...maybe I'll survive long enough to see it back again!
Thanks for the all the critiques that is very valuable feedback.
wrt choosing Wordpress - it certainly does have a lot of drawbacks like you mention, our reasons for going with it:
1. There are about 10 web designers in our town, they all use Wordpres...Wordpress runs just about every small -= medium site in South Africa, so if I fall under a bus theres someone to pick up the (website) pieces
2. We had a very broad set of requirements - event ticketing with seating plans, accommodation booking with calendars, payment processing, members directory with subscription and free options. Since this was very much an 'after-hours' project we needed fairly plug-and-play functionality.
3. Low budget for hosting - this site needed to run on a shared server that already had PHP / MySQL
But thanks again for the tips, I will review them with the team and I'm sure we can get most sorted! (the broken links were Wordpress permalinks misbehaving...oops)
Regarding speed - we have done a fair bit of optimizing Litespeed cache and reducing the unnecessary scripts that get loaded but yea its still slower than we would like. Also since we are not using a CDN, if you are far from South Africa latency will be a big issue.
That's fantastic you visited Greyton! no worries about AirBnb, everyone uses it - not just international visitors. We used to rent a room on Airbnbn (maybe you stayed with us even - near the mountain :) and we've certainly travelled plenty using it.
Greyton is definitely a hidden gem, for some reason it's not on many travel itineraries with most people doing a long one day drive from Cape Town to the Garden Route - but its without doubt the best village in the Cape, decent facilities & restaurants, fast Internet, lots of English speakers (if thats all you know!)
I don't know what the solution is wrt Airbnb, for someone planning a trip around a foreign country it offers some element of security and a lot of convenience...everything gets booked in one place. But for many small towns a tourist info office is more than just a place to pick up a map and its a social / emergency / Internet connection hub of many towns. Taking away the accommodation booking commission means that they can't operate or just get replaced by a sign board and some flyers that you can pickup at any petrol station anyway.
Greyton is fortunate in that there are lots of events, festivals, marathons & MTB races to sell tickets for and keep the office open, and it's close enough to Cape Town to get the short stays.
Next time you come, book your stay on GreytonTourism.com - insider tip, there are some unlisted, exceptional properties that can be booked...just send Ros an email on bookings at greytontourism dot com!
Living in a small village in a rural part of South Africa 2 hours from Cape Town. Off grid solar & water, keep chickens. Coder / remote sysadmin mostly for EU based companies. Same timezone as CET, so it works well. No cars needed, everything is in walking/biking distance & reasonably cost of living. Online shopping is big here, so if you are prepared to wait a couple days everything is available (no Amazon but it's coming soon I hear)
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