mpv is better

You know it’s explicitly not “free as in beer” right?

Big one is just walk more. If there’s anything near your house that you regularly drive to, start trying to walk there as much as possible.

I have a lot of trouble motivating for the gym and similar self-directed activities, so I find classes or semi-organized sports much easier to do consistently.

Actual copyleft licenses like the GPL are analogous to leftists (the name might be a clue); they actually care about protecting the rights of the little guy.

“Permissive” licenses are analogous to liberals and/or ancaps. Arguably better than the corps/fascists, but willing to compromise with them to the point that most of their moral high ground erodes.

In addition to the other options here, Tauon is a solid GUI music player.

Actual paid services? Basically only Steam.

FOSS is the only software you can count on to not start nickel and diming you once the subscriber count starts to level out.

Yeah that’s clearly working out great.

Western leftists only like failed socialism.

Just use the web version on Firefox with ublock origin. Been using the free version for years. You’ll get a few seconds of dead air now and then as a few ads cycle through without playing, but it’s far from the full length that the ad break is supposed to be.

I think the biggest fundamental concept for any computer regardless of operating system is filesystem hierarchy. The concept of nested folders is core to using a personal computer, but for the last two decades UI/X teams have done everything in their power to obscure and abstract it away. Many younger people conceptualize the storage on their device as just an amorphous blob that apps manage autonomously. Windows is starting to go this way as well with OneDrive being sold as the way to manage all your data, but on Linux the file system is still king.

Your mom is presumably old enough to have some experience with desktop PCs, so hopefully that basic hurdle is already cleared. And honestly once someone is at that level of base competence, along with basic interface concepts like how to use a mouse and keyboard, clicking on icons, use of a web browser etc, with the right distro you really don’t need to explain much else. There might be a few quirks of the UI to explain depending on what you choose, but most of that can be handled by just watching them use the computer for a bit, and/or asking them to give you a list of questions and annoyances after they use it for a few days.

The biggest difference is one that most “I just want it to work” users will actually love, and that’s relearning how to install software. Having one central location to install verified software from is a change from the wild west of downloading installers from the internet, but it shouldn’t be a difficult transition. Most people these days don’t even install software beyond maybe Zoom, so you can probably get away with just installing any third party software they need in the initial setup.

I recommend an immutable distro like Fedora Silverblue, at least if a) you’re setting it up and are reasonably technical, and b) you don’t want to go over and help them fix stuff often. I set my mom’s laptop up with it 4+ years ago and she’s only had one problem since then.

They’re both mature software packages with a ton of features. There are two gigantic obligations that a browser & especially web engine have that creative software don’t: massive security exposure and constantly changing web standards. Both create development burdens that are both non-trivial and time-sensitive. Many FOSS projects update at their own pace, which is simply not an option for a modern, feature-complete web engine.

You are severely underestimating the development burden of a modern web engine.

You must have changed an option, by default the page shows up every time you open a new tab. (Though you can disable the ads on it)

You can disable them, but also I’m pretty sure the default behavior is just to fill extra space if you have less than 8 pinned shortcuts. Your single shortcut is why there are so many ads.

Yes. I’m pretty sure you can disable sponsored suggestions in the options, or you can also just delete the individual sponsored options. I’ve not seen one of these in the last 4 years.

Because the entire US political spectrum fits nearly inside of “neoliberalism”. Liberalism in general is just capitalism+.

Is it non-trivial to enable non-free repos?

You are agreeing with the person you replied to lol

Having been in this position, sure, but I’ve also had to end relationships because the person transitioned in a direction I wasn’t attracted to. Communicating honestly and openly is the key, as it is for pretty much everything about interpersonal relationships.

Well of course!