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  • 19 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 20th, 2023

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  • Love the light on that shot! I hope you’ll keep going with the hobby!

    Here are a few things:

    • “Kit lens” such as this 18-55 of yours are typically not that great. It really depends what you plan to shoot, but going with a prime lens (50mm f/1.8), if you can afford it, or something vintage (Helios) can be a great experience; also for “forcing” you to shoot manual, as other advised.
    • Great to see you are on Linux! I have no idea about the webcam stuff. I also didn’t had luck trying to use a Sony camera myself, but I’m guessing if the proprietary software doesn’t work, the only option is to get a capture card for your PC.
    • For editing, I strongly recommend Darktable, also as advised before!
    • Shooting manual is rewarding; shooting “blind” (idk if there is a specific word for that), where you estimate the exposure “by hand” is a lot of fun imo, and very forgivable on digital camera! If you can, give a shot at the “Sunny 16 rule” technique. To me, it makes shooting outside very relaxing since I don’t have to care about the camera settings that much once it’s figured out.

    Have fun, but beware! It’s a deep, deep rabbit hole.








  • As pointed out by @themoonisacheese, immutable distros are getting some traction recently and they are good for making a system reproductible, allowing easy rollbacks, but this should not make a big difference, privacy-wise. It also add some work for configuration / learning. Here are two levels I’m thinking of from what you presented:

    • You go with any stable (big fan of Debian here too) so to avoid data breaches from brand new packages (xz…), then you can compartimentize your application with Flathub and manage the rights with Flatseal. If you go with software with less telemetry (Firefox), this should be a reasonable and easy to use setup. The rest of the privacy will depend on what is going on inside of your web browser, probably.

    • The next step would be something like Qudes-OS + Tor. If your workflow / usecase allows it, this should be a good step up for privacy. Your laptop seems beefy enough to handle the many VMs, and the install is easy enough imo.







  • Welcome to the community!

    Seconding all the previous comments recommending Linux Mint: since you come from Windows, you’ll probably feel most at home there. It is also possible to do all common tasks without ever opening the terminal.

    Mint should run fine on any hardware, but to be most safe, try to use something that is at least 1-2 years old and stay clear from dedicated GPU as first (in particular Nvidia).

    I’d also advise that the packaging situation for distributing software in Linux rn is somewhat messy. Thankfully, multiple format (apt, Flatpak) are directly available in the Linux Mint Software Center. In case you need to use some proprietary software (Chrome, Spotify, idk), you’d probably want to go with Flatpaks.