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I am looking for some Linux distribution suggestions.

I am a video gamer, so I've been using Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro as my desktop and notebook operating system of choice. I refuse to use Windows 10, and thought if I had Windows 8.1 Pro locked down tight, that would suffice until 2023.

I've been specifically using an outdated version of a graphics card device driver because newer versions cause Windows 8.1 to blue screen. So, I had Windows Update set up to not download and install any device drivers. Only I came home from work one day last week, and discovered that Windows Update downloaded and installed a new graphics card device driver out of the blue. Windows 8.1 instantly blue screened.

Now that I clearly no longer have any control over Windows Update, it's time to look into that whole Linux thing again, even if it probably means that I'll no longer be able to play most of the video games I own. I used to use Mandrake/Mandriva Linux back in the late '90s through mid-'00s, but that's dead, and its successor Mageia Linux isn't looking much more healthy these days.

I'm looking for a Linux distribution that's fairly easy to install and set up, supports AMD Ryzen-based processors, has support for binary graphics card drivers (not necessarily out of the box, but at least easy enough to find and install), has a fairly lightweight DE that I won't feel totally lost in coming from Microsoft Windows, is not Ubuntu, and is not based on Ubuntu.

Speaking of DEs, I'm lost about the Linux DEs these days. Back when I used Mandrake, there was just KDE, GNOME, and Enlightment. Now there's XFCE, Cinnamon, MATE, LXQt, Budgie, Pantheon, KDE Plasma, GNOME 3, Enlightment...

I've attempted searching via both StartPage and DuckDuckGo the past several days for answers to my questions without any real success. So, I thought I'd bring the subject up here.

My favorite music tends to be '70s, '80s, and early '90s pop, soft rock, and hard rock. Now, once upon a time, I had them all on CD, but in an effort to reduce clutter in a small condominium I ripped all of the CDs to 320 kbps MP3s, sorted and tagged them, and sold the CDs. Looking back, incredibly foolish I know.

Now, I would like to obtain lossless FLACs of the music and lossy Ogg Vorbis files for portable devices. I really don't want to deal with discs again (the clutter thing), but I've found some sites that sell FLAC or ALAC versions of some '70s, '80s, and '90s music albums. Notably, 7digital, and ProStudioMasters.

Some of the albums available are in 16 bit FLAC or 24 bit FLAC. Also 44.1k Hz, 48k Hz, 96k Hz, and 192k Hz. Now, from everything I've read, anything more than 24 bit 48k Hz is a waste of drive space.

So now my questions:

1. Besides 7digital, HDTracks, and ProStudioMasters, are there any other good sites to legally obtain FLACs of '70s, '80s, and '90s music albums?

2. Should I obtain say for instance, an album in 24 bit 48k Hz FLAC, would I be able to transcode this into Ogg Vorbis files? From what I can ascertain, 16bit 44.1k Hz FLAC files should be no problem, but I can't really find any documentation that supports the ability to transcode anything higher.

In addition to signing and encrypting e-mail messages, S/MIME certificates can also be used to authenticate Mumble VoIP users. That's honestly my primary use for a S/MIME certificate.

However, S/MIME seems to be in rapid decay. Fewer and fewer certificate authorities issue S/MIME certificates, either free or paid. For years, I used to pay Verisign then Symantec for a S/MIME certificate. Symantec got out of the S/MIME certificate business last year. GeoTrust and Thawte pulled out years ago. That pretty much leaves CAcert, Comodo, Entrust, IdenTrust, and Startcom. Except really that leaves Comodo, Entrust, and IdenTrust, as neither CAcert nor Startcom are trusted.

So, I tried Comodo last night, their paid option, for a two year S/MIME certificate. Their website and e-mail message I received stated to use either the Chrome, Firefox, or Internet Explorer browsers to generate and collect the certificate. I used Google Chrome. However, the certificate merely downloaded instead of install, and it was broken. I did some searching last night, and came across this.

Apparently Google removed the ability to generate keys from Google Chrome in version 49. Microsoft never implemented the ability at all in Microsoft Edge. Mozilla Firefox developers are apparently considering the removal of key generation as well.

That seems to leave S/MIME effectively dying, with the exception of self-signed certificates. But that's a pain in the rear for the average Joe, as is PGP.

Anyway, I revoked my new S/MIME certificate and sent Comodo an e-mail message today requesting a refund, and advised changing their order completion e-mail message and website to remove the recommendation of Google Chrome to generate and collect S/MIME certificates.

This is related to last week's Disqus story.

In addition to Disqus no longer being free, Adobe shut down the Livefyre commenting system this week. Adobe purchased Livefyre last year and decided it was no longer worth offering outside of the enterprise sector. A website I've perused daily for several years and have contributed a not insignificant amount of money to over the past two years used Livefyre as their commenting system. It switched this week to a native WordPress commenting system, (a plugin I believe). All well and good... except it doesn't offer local accounts and requires a social media account to login.

Livefyre (and Disqus for that matter), offered local accounts. Now, I'm not all that trusting of Disqus and Adobe, but it's slightly better to give them some of my information than Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, et al. With the website's new commenting system, I have to use either Facebook, Google Plus, Steam, or Twitter. No thank you.

Others that frequent the website say to just create a Twitter account and use it only to login, but it's the principle of the thing. It's giving more power to social media companies, who have too much power over the Internet now as is.

I've noticed more and more websites are going that route however, and doing away with local accounts. I wonder how long it will be before the Internet as a whole becomes a walled garden.

I discovered a good YouTube video discussing how and why Donald Trump won the Presidential election from the left's point of view. Warning: some salty language throughout.

This guy gets it, IMO.

Hollywood declared war on the personal computer, and seems to be winning. As a PC gamer, I admit that I'm a bit of a graphics snob, and that includes movies. Watching (or ripping, as the case may be), a Blu-ray disc on a PC is tedious, but not impossible. At least on Windows, the only software that will play a Blu-ray disc (guaranteed), without ripping it before hand is CyberLink PowerDVD. But it is possible.

Streaming... It's recently been confirmed that only Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer can play Netflix content at 1080p on Windows, and Safari on macOS. Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and other browsers are limited to 720p. You can forget about 4K Ultra HD streaming on the PC. It's not available now, and there is no sign that it will ever be available. This can be resolved though, as it's mostly a software issue. It's the DRM that prevents 1080p and 4K UHD streaming on the PC.

The quality of 4K Ultra HD streaming is good. 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray is better. However, the problem of playing 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs (and ripping for that matter), on the PC is even more complicated than the streaming of 4K UHD content on the PC. It's both a hardware and software issue. For one, 4K Ultra HD adds HDR and 10-bit color, (or even 12-bit in some cases). HDR monitors are coming in the near future, so that hardware issue will be solved. The second issue is the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disc itself. It may or may not be a hardware issue. I've read conflicted reports that BDXL drives can read 4K UHD Blu-ray discs, (but not play them). Some say it's possible, others say it's not. So, it may require a whole new optical disc drive in order to play 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs. BDXL drives for the PC are fairly rare in and of themselves, but there's no indication that 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disc drives for the PC are coming in the near future or even at all.

The PC has effectively been locked out of 4K Ultra HD content by Hollywood in both hardware and software, (DRM). Ironically enough as a PC gamer, video game consoles have no such issues. The Microsoft Xbox One S can play 4K Ultra HD streams and Blu-ray discs. I find that both amusing and sad.

I'm just thinking "out loud" at this point and not really expecting any solutions, but it seems to me that keeping in touch with long distance family and friends is more difficult today than it was ten years ago, should you value your privacy.

My sister and her family live on the other side of the North American continent from me, and most of my friends are also on the other side of the continent. My sister regularly takes pictures and videos of her family and uploads them to Facebook and Instagram for family and friends to see. She'll occasionally e-mail pictures to me, but it's usually about one out of every ten that she posts on Facebook and Instagram, or so it seems.

About ten years ago, I and two others set up a web forum for a group of friends and friends of friends. It worked well for the first few years but, over the past five years or so, people have slowly drifted away to the point now where it's a shell of its former self. Out of a former about 60 regular users, it's now down to about four regular users. The main culprit? Facebook and Twitter. Everyone else of their family and friends were on Facebook and Twitter, so they've just found it easier to stick with Facebook and Twitter for all of their communications and not bother with using the forum. At least that's what my two fellow co-admins have told me. One hasn't logged onto the web forum in over a year, and another logs in once every other week or so.

Another group of friends primarily uses Skype to keep in touch. I've tried for the past two years to get them to switch to either Telegram, or Wire. I mean, I know Telegram and Wire aren't perfect. They're centralized, and only their clients are open source. However, they're both a danged sight better than Skype, and I figured it'd be easier to get them to switch to Telegram or Wire than Ring or Tox. It's a no go though. Not one has yet to bother to even set up an account on Telegram nor Wire. As far as they are concerned, everyone uses Skype or FaceTime, and they just don't give a dang about their privacy. They're not doing anything wrong nor have anything to hide, so why should they care if they're being spied on?

It seems to be a lost cause. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Skype, and FaceTime are just too entrenched and most people don't give a dang about their privacy. They simply don't care. They only care about where everyone else is. This social media age makes it difficult for those that do care about their privacy to keep in touch with family and friends that don't.

I decided to finally register and use my own domain name for my e-mail account, instead of relying on the various services out there. I lost a couple of years worth of e-mail messages and a few accounts when Lavabit shut down three years ago. Then one of the other e-mail providers I moved to recently lost a couple of months worth of e-mail messages... they never backed up their servers, apparently.

With just about every domain name under the sun that I could think up already taken on .com, .net, and .org, I decided on .email. I mean, the domain name I wanted was available, and it would only be used for e-mail, so .email should be perfect!

I began the tedious process of changing the e-mail address registered to my 300 or so on-line accounts, (seriously, I didn't realize I had that many). However, I've hit a bit of a snag. Quite a few are not accepting .email as a valid e-mail address. It appears that some sites are hard-coded to only accept .com, .net, .org, .aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .museum, .name, and .pro (the last seven are a maybe), and the various country TLDs. They do not like the new generic TLDs for e-mail addresses.

Just a forewarning for anyone else that may consider using one of the new generic TLDs as an e-mail domain.