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Well, Fustie keeps beating that tiresome old drum about Dems and Repubs being opposite sides of the same coin. We do get tired of hearing that, but Schumer (or his agents) sent me an email that supports Fusty's position.

Moments ago, Senate Republicans shut down a motion to proceed to debate on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

All but one of them didn't consider voting rights -- the most sacred right in our democracy -- even worth debating. This is the fourth time they've blocked debate on voting rights this year and it's unacceptable.

Senate Democrats and I will never stop fighting to to protect voting rights. And right now, I need your support more than ever. Can you chip in right now to help me and Democrats in the Senate keep up the fight for voting rights?

If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation to Chuck Schumer will go through immediately.

John Lewis risked his life to secure the right to vote. And the bill named in his honor that Republicans just blocked would've restored critical protections from the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

But Republicans refuse to even come to the table and debate how we can protect voting rights. Instead, Republican-controlled state legislatures are making it harder to vote -- in ways that are despicable, overtly racist, and shameful to anyone who believes in democracy.

We need to stand up to every single attack not just with outrage, but with action. We must be committed to keeping up this critical fight. Our democracy is at stake.

We will always defend our right to vote -- no matter how long it takes. Republicans and their voter suppression efforts won't win.

Chip in to support the Democratic majority and me as we fight to put strong voter protection laws on the books and end the rising tide of voter suppression.

This isn't over -- you'll hear more from me soon.

Chuck Schumer

The hypocritical bastard leads the party that controls both houses, but he can't even get a debate going? Yes, of course he's lying through his teeth. But, progressives eat that shit up. Not only do they eat it up, they rush to respond to every call for more monies. Have I ever mentioned that every email from progressives whines for money? "Moar monies will buy whatever you want in Washington!" So, not just a hypocritical bastard, but a whoring hypocritical bastard.

Gotta keep that sense of public outrage inflamed, as well. When Dems lose the White House and the Senate, they'll need to instigate another summer of love, filled with 'mostly peaceful' protests that burn cities to the ground.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken-vaccine-makes-virus-dangerous

Feds to Pay Charleston Church Shooting Families $88M Settlement After Botched Background Check

Families of nine victims killed in a racist attack at a Black South Carolina church have reached a settlement with the Justice Department over a faulty background check that allowed Dylann Roof to purchase the gun he used in the 2015 massacre.

The Justice Department will pay $88 million, which includes $63 million for the families of the nine people killed and $25 million for five survivors who were inside the church at the time of the shooting, it was announced Thursday.

Bakari Sellers, an attorney who helped broker the agreement, told The Associated Press the “88” figure was purposeful. It’s a number typically associated with white supremacy and the number of bullets Roof said he had taken with him to the attack.

https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/feds-to-pay-charleston-church-shooting-families-88m-settlement-after-botched-background-check/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-to-pay-88m-to-families-victims-of-sc-church-massacre/ar-AAQ3RXF
https://www.foxcarolina.com/news/families-of-victims-in-sc-church-killings-settle-with-feds-over-background-check-that-allowed/article_4cc557cc-3808-11ec-a711-d72e2664d353.html?block_id=994023
https://tdn.com/news/national/govt-and-politics/families-of-9-killed-in-sc-church-settle-with-feds-over-gun/article_16e9662b-3746-53cf-ac20-e0ced91f281d.html
and many other sites

I thought, that's nice and all - some victims get some money for their losses, and the 88 is tossed in to slap white supremacists in the face. Good too, that flaws in the system are singled out, and maybe they get fixed.

Next thought was, what are the flaws in the system?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/charleston-shooting-suspect-dylann-roof-drug-suboxone/

Hmmm - suboxone. Not your typical pot head with a stash of grass.

Suboxone is a hybrid composed of three parts of the opiate buprenorphine, which is considered milder and therefore safer than other opiates, and one part naloxone, an overdose antidote which makes users sick if they try to shoot it up with a syringe.

I don't know enough about it to form an opinion, but, yeah, opiates. Dylann probably shouldn't be walking around with dangerous weapons.

But, the screwup - what was that exactly?

Months before the June 17, 2015 church shooting, Roof was arrested on Feb. 28 by Columbia, South Carolina police on the drug possession charge. But a series of clerical errors and missteps allowed Roof to buy the handgun he later used in the massacre.

The errors included wrongly listing the sheriff’s office as the arresting agency in the drug case, according to court documents. An examiner with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System found some information on the arrest but needed more to deny the sale, so she sent a fax to a sheriff’s office. The sheriff’s office responded it didn’t have the report, directing her to the Columbia police.

Under the system’s operating procedures, the examiner was directed to a federal listing of law enforcement agencies, but Columbia police did not appear on the list. After trying the separate West Columbia Police Department and being told it was the wrong agency, the examiner did nothing more.

After a three-day waiting period, Roof went back to a West Columbia store to pick up the handgun.

So, the system only works when everybody does his part. Put an incompetent fool into the system somewhere, anywhere, and the system breaks.

And, once again, we see that a mass shooter was, or probably was, influenced by the use of drugs. Usually, the drug involved is some psychoactive used by the psychiatric profession, but here, an opiate.

Progressives want to see "more" background checks. Wrong approach - doing more of what's not working won't make anything better. The system needs to be fixed, instead. I say that anyone prescribed psychoactive drugs should be put into a database somewhere, that the background check computers use to make their decisions. Drug arrests need to be better documented, obviously.

Many, perhaps most, of the mass shooters never would have "legally" purchased a weapon, if it were known that they were drug users.

Fix the system. Don't grow the system, fix it!

EDIT: Seems that drugs, weapons, and racism runs in the Roof family.
https://www.heraldsun.com/news/state/south-carolina/article209681659.html

Morgan Roof, younger sister of Dylann Roof, was recently arrested for simple drug and weapon possession inside school grounds. Prior to the arrest, she made a racially-driven social media post that alarmed the student body at A.C. Flora High. BY LYNNETTE CANTOS

Oh - just pepper spray and a knife. Need more details, but "knife" may or may not mean anything at all. Some schools go spastic over the little file sharpener blade on nail clippers, FFS.

Kenosha, Wisconsin, the Rittenhouse trial, political activist prosecutors want to frame the trial in liberal terms. The judge isn't playing that game.

Men shot by Kyle Rittenhouse during Kenosha protests can be called "rioters," "looters" and "arsonists" at trial, judge rules

A Wisconsin judge laid out the final ground rules this week on what evidence will be allowed when Kyle Rittenhouse goes on trial next week for shooting three people during a protest against police brutality, ruling he'll permit testimony from the defense's use-of-force expert and on how police welcomed Rittenhouse and others carrying guns during the demonstration.

The hearing was likely the last before Rittenhouse goes on trial Nov. 1 for the shootings during chaotic demonstrations in Kenosha on Aug. 25, 2020, two days after a white police officer in that city shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, in the back while responding to a domestic disturbance.

Rittenhouse, 18, of Antioch, Illinois, was among a number of people who responded to calls on social media to take up arms and come to Kenosha to respond to the protests. Rittenhouse, who is white, is charged with homicide and other crimes in the fatal shootings of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and the wounding of Gaige Grosskreutz, all also white.

Rittenhouse's attorneys want use-of-force expert John Black to testify that Rittenhouse acted in self-defense. Prosecutors have asked Judge Bruce Schroeder to block Black's testimony, arguing that jurors don't need an expert to understand what happened that night.

Schroeder told the attorneys that Black wouldn't be allowed to testify about what Rittenhouse was thinking when he pulled the trigger or whether he definitively acted in self-defense.

Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger said if Schroeder allowed Black to testify only about the timeline of events that night he wouldn't call his own expert to the stand. Defense attorney Mark Richards agreed to the deal.

Schroeder denied Binger's request to bar the defense from referring to Rosenbaum, Huber and Grosskreutz as "rioters", "looters" or "arsonists." The judge said those terms would be allowed if the defense can produce evidence showing that's what they were.

Binger asked Schroeder to bar a video that shows police telling Rittenhouse and other armed militia members on the streets that they appreciated their presence and tossing Rittenhouse a bottle of water. The prosecutor said the video would transform the trial into a referendum on police procedure that night when it isn't relevant.

"This is a case about what the defendant did that night," Binger said. "I'm concerned this will be turned into a trial about what law enforcement did or didn't do that night."

Defense attorney Corey Chirafisi argued the video shows that police felt Rittenhouse wasn't acting recklessly. Binger countered that the shootings happened after Rittenhouse interacted with the police, but Schroeder decided to allow the video.

"If the jury is being told, if the defendant is walking down the sidewalk and doing what he claims he was hired to do and police say good thing you're here, is that something influencing the defendant and emboldening him in his behavior? That would be an argument for relevance," the judge said.

Many conservatives have flocked to support Rittenhouse, calling him a patriot and making him a symbol for gun rights and raising $2 million for his bail. Others, including some liberals and activists, portray him as a domestic terrorist and say he made a volatile situation worse.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kyle-rittenhouse-trial-ground-rules-evidence/

Rioters. Looters. Arsonists. No mention of histories of domestic violence and sexual misconduct, or sex offender registry status. Just rioters, looters, and arsonists.

From an email from Rittenhouse's legal team -

BREAKING: We just had another big win in court as the judge slapped down the prosecution's blatant attempts to downplay the heinous acts committed by the men who brutally attacked Kyle last summer.

Here's one key exchange verbatim:
Prosecutor: "If there were any evidence in this case that Mr. Rosenbaum physically attacked anyone else that night, chased anyone else that night...we can talk about that. But I don't hear any evidence to that effect. All we're talking about is arson..."

Judge: "I can't believe some of the things you're saying. All we're talking about is arson? C'mon!"
These political activists masquerading as prosecutors are really trying to make the case that looting and burning down a city is no big deal. My God.

Here is the fact they will never sweep under the rug...

Kyle was in Kenosha to offer first aid and help save lives, and the men he defended himself against were there to loot, destroy and create mayhem. And that's exactly what they did.

The judge's decision was right, and with just days to go before our November 1 trial, momentum is on our side.

Help us us keep fighting with an urgent donation. We haven't hit our $300,000 goal and we're running out of time. Please donate now >>

Thank you for your commitment. You're the only reason we're still standing, and with your continued support we are going to win this case.

– Team Kyle

Rioters. Looters. Arsonists. I'll bet that arson crap will go over big with jurors. Some of them probably live in, or near, Kenosha. Maybe they depend on the shops that were destroyed. Maybe they go into town every day, and see the destruction wrought by these rioters, looters and arsonists. Not victims, but violent sons of bitches intent on destroying a town, and beating, maiming, or even killing innocent bystanders.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12500090/kenosha-riots-worker-beaten-looter-jacob-blake/

Sick moment Kenosha looters attack elderly store worker protecting business amid riots over Jacob Blake shooting

Read that article, then tell me again who the victims were. Rioters are most certainly not victims.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.568492/gov.uscourts.nysd.568492.1.0.pdf

PDF of court case in New York. Everytown For Gun Safety seems to be upset that 3D printers are printing their silly logo onto 3D printed guns.

9. The Defendants have created and distributed downloadable files for use in 3-D
printers to extrude gun parts and accessories. These files include the identical Everytown Marks
in the file names and/or on the resulting extruded gun parts and accessories emblazoned with the
Everytown Marks. The downloadable “printing kits” are accessible to consumers in New York
and bear unauthorized identical copies of Everytown’s registered trademarks. Each Defendant
has targeted New York consumers by uploading these files to a full interactive online website
that is viewable by and accessible to New York consumers.
10. Defendants have offered and/or distributed the Infringing Products (as defined
herein) through the websites odysee.com and defcad.com to consumers within the United States,
including to consumers within New York.

The image can be seen here https://cdn0.thetruthaboutguns.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-25-at-7.07.05-AM.png

You would think that Everytown would appreciate all that free advertising!

Like I mentioned earlier, apparently my host, R4L, had an automated tool that apparently fixed it. The red line was no longer across the padlock.
        However, there was a little black dot on the image. I clicked it, and Firefox informed me that there were unprotected elements and suggested images. So I opened the index page in notepad, and the images were all in-line, no http or https;
        So I set it aside for a while. The answer would come to me, as it usually does eventually.
        It did the next morning. I make it a habit to read a chapter out of the Bible while my coffee is brewing, and remembered that all the illustrations in my online King James on my web site were actually on Wikipedia. So I opened every file; there’s one for each book, and did a global replace of http with https.
        It took quite a while. I uploaded the files, and the little black dot is still there with the same message.
        At any rate, both Opera and Chrome show the site as secure, so I’m not going to worry about it. Unless, of course, I think of something else.
        I wrote the above yesterday before I went to the bar. When I got to the bar, they told me the shuffleboard scoreboard was messing up. I looked at the old Samsung Tab 3 I had donated, and its old proprietary browser would no longer display a secure page at all!
        A week or so ago I’d tried downloading Firefox so that it could display the scoreboard fullscreen, but Google Play wouldn’t let me in; two factor authentication. Stupid. I don’t have to show ID to enter a physical store. At any rate, I’ll go back this afternoon with the notebook with email.
        As to the stupid dongle, the old phone I was using as the radio crapped out, so I was back to using Bluetooth on the tablet, which was a lousy solution, as when I changed inputs the stupid tablet started making noise; the noise of a commercial. Annoying.
        And then I realized that I’d not tried using Bluetooth with Windows 10. I wasn’t hopeful that they fixed it, Microsoft almost never fixes broken junk when they “update” their OS, they just add eye candy and move everything around so you have to learn how to use it all over again.
        But amazingly, they actually fixed it! So I have KSHE playing over Bluetooth from the tablet, and the tower plays tunes from the file server.
        So I took my laptop to the bar, and Google annoyed me no end trying to get into Google Play. Searching for Firefox returned only Chrome and Opera. Apparently Firefox won’t run on that old browser because it wasn’t in Google Play at all. So I installed Opera; Chrome showed a scary thing saying my SSL wasn’t good, but I never see that in Chrome on any other device, so it’s probably just that ancient tablet.
        I ran the browser, put the scoreboard as its home screen, and had it put a link to the page on the tablet’s home screen. I handed it back to the bartender, who came back and said the back and reset buttons were missing. They were. WTF?? There must be something wrong with the code. I told the bartender I’d have to look at the code, in Canada, when I got home. Actually it’s on my hard drive, too. She wanted me to take the tablet home and bring it back, probably not realizing I might have to adjust 44 files.
        Than Patty called crying. Her eleven year old cat that the vet had told her wouldn’t see four because it had FIV, the cat version of AIDS, had cancer. I was surprised that her talking to me cheered her up. I wonder how long the cat has? That’s why I’ll never have another animal, it hurts too bad when they die.
        I finished my second beer and took the tablet home, and started opening HTML scoreboard files. I opened B0.html, the file that displays a blue zero in notepad, and there was no back or reset!
        I looked at its backup. It was the same.
        When I had first gone to the bar there was a guy from Texas spouting Quazy antivax conspiracy theories. Maybe I was being infected by his insanity, because I started to wonder if my original code had somehow traded places with code from an alternate reality or something. It made no sense. Did somebody hack me, and my host? Both theories were equally ludicrous.
        After loading a dozen HTML files into notepad without actually looking at any of them, I noticed something—B4.html had the back and reset button, which is when the light went on. A score of zero needs no reset to bring it to zero, and there is no -1. I’m thinking of adding gray back and reset to the zeros so if something like this comes up in a couple of years, it won’t make me crazy.
        I hope nobody tries to use my site with an outdated tablet and browser now that I have SSL, because it makes old tablets and browsers freak out. But I imagine if someone has used the same tablet for ten years, they’re used to secure sites breaking.
        Whatever happened to backwards compatibility? I’m using HTML 4.1, two decades old but it still breaks with a browser newer than that hitting a secure site. It’s a little insane.

I hadn't heard that term until I opened an email.

Temporary inflation surcharge as of November 1, 2021

October 2021

Due to the dynamic price developments in the procurement market, we are forced to impose a temporary inflation surcharge of 3.4 % on all currently valid prices (list prices and special prices) as well as on all quoted prices on orders placed after October 31, 2021. Excluded from this are services such as training and commissioning.

A corresponding note will be included on all quotations beginning in October. The surcharge on the total net value will be shown separately on the invoice starting November 1, 2021.
We hope for a normalization of the price situation soon and thank you for your understanding.

Best regards,


Troy Waldherr
Vice President of Sales and Operations
TOX® PRESSOTECHNIK LLC

Well then - vendors are going to start charging us for inflation? After a head scratch, I hit the duck and found little - but that little is interesting.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/harley-davidson-fights-inflation-with-a-2-surcharge-but-thats-not-quite-enough-11626890539

Harley-Davidson fights inflation with a 2% surcharge, but that’s not quite enough
Published: July 21, 2021 at 2:02 p.m. ET
By Tomi Kilgore

Motorcycle maker sees raw materials and freight inflation lasting throughout the year

https://hbr.org/2021/07/how-b2b-firms-can-price-with-confidence-as-inflation-rises

How B2B Firms Can Price with Confidence as Inflation Rises
by Nathan Hamilton, David Burns, Kent Harrison, and Thomas Luedi

A long-forgotten problem, higher inflation, has eroded the finances of many companies. Right now, many are struggling with high costs for raw materials, labor, energy, and other inputs, along with supply bottlenecks. At the same time, demand is surging as economies reopen for business in the wake of falling Covid-19 cases.

Some businesses have started to raise prices in response, with producer prices in the OECD countries up 9% in the 12 months through April 2021. Consumer prices were up 3.3% over the same period (with the U.S. consumer price index well above that at 5.0% through May). Kimberly-Clark recently raised list prices on consumer products in North America, with percentage increases in the mid-to-high single digits. Consumers will now pay more for Pirelli and Yokohama tires and Energizer batteries. Hercules Industries boosted prices by an average of 15% on heating and cooling equipment, mainly due to rising costs for steel. Various chemical companies are charging more for polyethylene, one of the most widely used plastics.

https://www.today.com/food/what-covid-19-surcharge-why-some-restaurants-are-adding-extra-t181450

What is a COVID-19 surcharge? Why some restaurants are adding them to your bill
Some eateries are charging new fees to help make up for the rising cost of food and operating costs.

By Chrissy Callahan and Vicky Nguyen
Next time you order takeout or sit down at your favorite restaurant for a meal, you might notice you're paying a bit more than normal.

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to take a toll on businesses large and small across the country, many restaurant owners have added something called a COVID-19 surcharge to their customers' bills to help offset the cost of cleaning supplies, personal protective equipment for staff, disposable menus and more.

Whether it comes in the form of a 5% fee or an extra dollar tacked onto your bill, COVID-19 surcharges are becoming increasingly common and NBC News investigative and consumer correspondent Vicky Nguyen explored the rising trend on TODAY on Monday.

I guess it's official then? Inflation is going to eat us for lunch? Is that worse than being eaten by a grue?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJPX_k5gfRc

I wrote this a couple of years ago and could have sworn I posted it, but the only place I could find it was on my hard drive.
        My intention wasn’t to use HTML as a programming language—it’s a markup language. I didn’t realize what I had done until I had done it.
        I’ve been programming since 1982, but haven’t done any of what I called “real” programming since they switched from Foxpro to Access at work well over a decade ago; yes, you can build databases with Access but I didn’t consider it “programming”.
        The only coding I’ve done in years isn’t what I call “programming” unless there’s Javascript, and there’s very little on either of my sites.
        Mike Meyer bought a very old shuffleboard, older than me, for his bar, Felber’s, last year, and came up with a paperish whiteboard for a scoreboard. I was playing with my tablet a couple of weeks ago and realized that I could make a scoreboard in HTML, so I swapped the tablet for the computer and went to work.
        The first thing I needed to do was something I’d only done once before, and that was almost two decades ago—use frames.
        That first time was a joke I played with an online friend and link buddy in Canada, who was going to medical school. He often complained of the lab rats biting him.
        I often ran a contest on my site called the “Ticket to Nowhere”. The winner was a Quake or gaming webmaster who went the longest without updating their site. The winner got a no expense paid ticket to absolutely nowhere.
        Dopey Smurf (the fellow’s Quake handle) emailed me and said he was planning to close his site, because graduation was coming up and he feared it would harm his upcoming career.
        As soon as I saw the email I had a humorous idea and emailed him back. I would have another contest, and in addition to the ticket to nowhere, the winner (Smurf, of course) would get a box of voracious invisible rats that if let loose would eat a web site. I wrote a container that loaded an unlinked page from my site, which would have a screen-sized GIF of his site. Touching it got the GIF running, which showed the outlines of rats eating their way across the page leaving a dull yellow behind.
        Two or three years earlier, Joost Shoor had shut down his Quake site search engine, leaving a dull yellowish screen with a Strogg holding a sign that read “Haste does not lead to success”. What the invisible rats left was identical to Joost’s closed site, except the sign read “Out to lunch”.
        If I’d kept that code, the scoreboard would have been a lot easier, as I had some relearning to do. I’d completely forgotten how to do frames. Of course, I’d only used one in that one occasion.
        Once I had that figured out, it was a piece of cake. I just made an HTML file and a JPG for each number of each color, with arrows at the bottom to increase or decrease the number, linking to the next and previous. Dirt simple. But when I tested it I realized I needed a way to bring them back to zero, so I added a reset. That done and tested and I rolled a joint and opened a beer.
        Later that evening I thought of a big improvement—numbers from one to four at the bottom, with each number linking to the number that value higher than the present number. So I got out the computer and, half drunk and all the way stoned, backed up the working files and tried to do the modifications, but I was nowhere near sober enough. I put it away for the next morning.
        It was a lot easier, and the modifications took about an hour or two (there were 44 HTML files to change). I uploaded it to my web site, got out my tablet, and only then realized that I’d written a completely functional program using nothing but HTML 4.1 and JPGs.
        The one last thing I need to do is to name the window so I could have a single reset button. I knew how to do it when I gave Smurf the invisible rats, but have forgotten completely how. It might have used javascript, I don’t remember.
        I wish I had saved the rats!

https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/pureos-mobile/

Phone experience, sure. Would you want a phone OS on a laptop? Or even a desktop? Aren't phone OSs just toy OSs, unsuitable for real work? Why should I waste time looking at this?

PureOS is based on the Debian operating system, the most popular GNU+Linux OS in the world, powering everything from a Raspberry Pi to the world’s biggest datacenters and supercomputers. PureOS strives for the strictest of security and privacy protection, by releasing all the source code, and offering safe security and privacy defaults, as well as avoiding common security threats, such as ransomware, and data mining tools. PureOS is in complete compliance with FSF’s free distribution guidelines and does not ship proprietary software or blobs.

PureOS is a true Free and Open-Source project where community contributions are welcome, and it can be entirely audited for security.

So, it's Debian, not a toy OS at all. Well, let's take a look at it! https://pureos.net/

Download, create another VM, and install.

The installer pops up at boot, in an 800x600 console. Ignore it for a moment, click 'activities' in the upper left corner of the screen, search for 'display' and open it up. Can't find the option that best suits my screen, but 1680x1050 will work. Now you can see what you're doing, and you can play around with stuff while installation proceeds. Would you care for a game of thermonuclear warfare?

Go back to the installer, accept all the defaults, which includes encryption. Can't input a password with sticky keys screwing things up, so go back to settings, and increase the time for repeating keys etc. Put a password into the installer, sit back, and wait.

Upon reboot, install VBox tools, and acknowledge the notification for updates. Let it download, then it wants to reboot - it takes awhile but when you get back to the desktop, display looks right.

Debian, huh? Well, for whatever reason, I have the full suite of LibreOffice apps already installed, with few other applications. Rhythmbox, contacts, calendar, photos, videos, web. Not really impressive - but, call up terminal.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install lxterminal synaptic vlc

Ahhhhh, this is looking more like Debian. Browse synaptic, decide to install thunar and a few other things. I've got tools with which to look around but the desktop still looks barren. Open up settings > tweaks > extensions. First, I enable the 'applications menu'. No desktop is complete without a menu to open! Then enable 'window list' and I get a bar across the bottom of the screen, with every open application claiming a spot on it. I learn that I have an active 'hot corner' but nothing to indicate what it is, what it does, or which corner it is in. Under 'window titlebars' I enable maximize and minimize buttons in windows. Ahhhh, this is really starting to feel like a Linux desktop!! Oh yeah - forgot to mention this is Gnome. KDE is an option, but this ISO didn't offer that option during installation.

Browser - unnamed browser uses webkit, so it's obviously an unbranded Chrome/Chromium. Google app store won't allow me to install extensions unless I sign in. Nice to have the option, unlike that Chinese OS I looked at. But, I don't feel like creating a new account right now, nor do I want to associate this machine to any real accounts. Maybe I fire up synaptic, and see which, if any, non-mobile browsers I can install.

Firefox ESR, and Chromium seem to be it. Install both, and install extensions to use DDG search, install privacy extensions. Nice. And, of course, I can always install Firefox etc from any .deb file downloaded from a trusted source. Or, I can enable other repositories from upstream.

Fell back to this page https://github.com/ratul0547/quick-setup and installed apt-fast and some of the rest.

So, I've converted a mobile/phone OS into a full-fledged desktop OS pretty quickly. I have everything available that you would expect on a grown-up workstation. I'm impressed with PureOS.

Real Convergence
Real convergence means bringing your desktop computer with you wherever you go. When we talk about how we have invested in convergence with PureOS we start with the desktop OS and shrink it down to your pocket.

A company could conceivably operate all their phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, and even their servers using this one Debian distro. All it would take, is an IT guy willing to configure one of each, then copy the images over to the rest of the hardware.

Unlike other OSs I've looked at, I can actually give this a strong recommendation. Odd - what I can't find is the "buy us a coffee" button. Lesser operating systems ask for donations etc, but these guys don't.

How I got here: I'm eyeballing a MacBookPro that "can't be recovered". Not sure, maybe it's hot, but no one has the password, and it only boots to the Guest account. I think macOS sucks, but for if I get this thing for a couple hundred dollars, I can install my own OS - whether that be Big Sur, or something else.

So, I've searched for "distros like macOS" and found a page full of suggestions. https://itsfoss.com/macos-like-linux-distros/ I've already dismissed Elementary, the first place suggestion. So, I look at Deepin here.

First, it's a Chinese build. The repositories are located in China, apparently all the development takes place in China, so, of course, everything in the system will conform to Party rules. Under the hood, it's Debian, but Debian with a Chinese flavor. Come along for the ride!

Created a VBox machine, 8 CPUs and 24 gig of memory. I thought I gave it 16, but once it was running, I obviously clicked on 24. Fed in the ISO, and installation went as quickly and easily as any installation does. Oddly, I was not asked for a password for root. I suppose the Party has that? As user, I can sudo or su or whatever, just like normal.

Like macOS, and incidentally, like Elementary, updates and upgrades are by default handled by a system updater, and you're not exposed to apt, synaptic, or whatever. Updates come from China, or course. App store is more Linux user friendly here than in macOS. There are more apps that are recognizable to a Linux guy, at least. And, I think everything I saw was free, unlike macOS that wants a dollar for almost everything. Elementary also asks for money for a lot of stuff, but you can fill in the amount with $0 and install anyway. Here, everything was free.

Well, I thought I read that this was Debian? Fire up the terminal, and do an apt-get update and apt-get upgrade, things look normal. No synaptic though, which is handy for browsing for stuff. Try apt-get install synaptic, that works. Fire up synaptic and I'm in for a couple surprises.

First, I can't access the repositories. Apparently, the Party doesn't want good citizens opting out of approved repositories, and using *gasp* SID, or some other subversive software channel.

Second, clicking on the "sections" tab reveals some rather odd repositories. There is a section for "Unilities" and another for "Utilities". OK, call that a cheap shot, pretty much all Chinese who read or speak English learned it as a second language. But, still, you kinda expect coders to be literate in whatever language they are using, right? Then, there are a lot entries like "com.plustek.linuxaction". I scratch my head, and wonder what "com." means, or "plustek" or "linuxaction". Scroll around some more, and there are lots of com. entries. Maybe that's the app store?

Found a few other entries that pull directly from git. Then, there are things like "Package: cn.gov.gdzwfw.yzy.uoser 粤政易 Maintainer: work_weixin"

I'm past the point at which I should have monitored for phone home stuff. Update and upgrade took care of that, if checking the app store didn't already. If your government is an actively participating maintainer of packages, you know it's calling home!

As for the OS - it's kinda pretty. It looks rather macOS like, but it doesn't ape OS X as closely as Elementary does. Wallpaper, icons, status bar, everything is reminiscent of OS X, but it doesn't go crazy overboard. Control Center looks like a cross between macOS and Windows 10 control centers. It's functional, and everything is easily customized here. I put up a wallpaper of Winnie the Pooh, and my computer didn't melt down.

Other strange things include the browser. The browser has no name.

About Browser
Browser
Version 5.4.3 (Official Build) (64-bit)| 83.0.4103.116
Browser
Copyright 2021 UnionTech Software Technology Co., LTD. All Rights Reserved.
This browser is made possible by the Chromium open source project and other open source software.

I can find more oddities, but that gives you an idea. Obviously, it's a customized Chrome browser. There is no addon or extension management, something like uBlock origin probably doesn't meet Party standards.

I noticed in Synaptic that I can install Firefox ESR, but didn't see anything like a current Firefox. Let me look again . . . Nope, no Firefox. I get Firefox ESR Quantum version 68.12.0esr which looks just like Firefox ESR on any other distro.

Overall impression is, I rather like this OS. Easy to install, easy to use, it's only slightly locked down compared to most Linuxes. I'm just leery of the phone home stuff. I don't think I'll install this on that MacBook, if I get it. Further, I have zero idea whether Deepin actually supports Apple hardware. Of course, YMMV. Take it for a spin, see what you think of it, and if you don't care that China might spy on you, enjoy!