When you're trying to decentralise your technology, one of the key things to consider is your computer's Operating System (OS).
Your OS is the most important piece of software in your computer, that makes it possible for your programs to use your hardware.

Usually when people buy a computer, an OS comes pre-installed. For most computers this is Microsoft Windows, although Apple computers have their own OS called MacOS.
However, it is possible to replace the pre-installed OS by choosing a different OS yourself and installing it. Linux OSs are the most popular alternative.

Why switch OS?

Windows especially pushes very strongly to centralisation. Forcing users to create an online account, controlling when their computer updates and what is installed, and sending data about the computer's usage back to Microsoft all being prime examples. This leads to a feeling that your computer belongs to Microsoft instead of you.

People who want to take back control often choose to install a different OS.

What are distros?

When you first look into installing Linux, you'll see a lot of people telling you to choose a "distro", short for "distribution". This is because Linux, technically speaking, is only one part of the OS. Packaging it together with other software is what turns it into a full OS. And there are different sets of software you can choose, each called a "distribution".

Choosing a distro is not as big a deal as it sounds and should not discourage you. The main things to consider are: do you want frequent small updates to keep your OS on the cutting-edge (rolling-release model) or infrequent large updates to keep your OS stable (fixed release model).

Note that the "look and feel" of a Linux OS comes from its "desktop environment" (DE), not directly from the distribution - if you find a DE you like the look of, there are usually many different distros that can use that DE.

Some examples of Linux OSs

• Linux Mint: Fixed release, DE choice of Cinnamon, MATE or XFCE
• CachyOS: Rolling release, many different DEs offered during installation (KDE is default)

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this, redirects welcome.

I've got an old MSI Z97 mobo. Not surprised the CMOS battery died, but I replaced it and it doesn't seem to have fixed anything. Any time the board loses power the startup settings still reset and I have to use the physical keyboard to reconfigure it; not conducive to controlling it remotely as I'd prefer. Any ideas?

welp, replacing the replacement seems to have done the trick!
the og battery i replaced is long gone, but this is the replacement i put in like a month ago

the empty slot

and now a NEW replacement, i never would have thought to do it again.

i put the sony battery into a different mobo and it seems to work... i swear i had it pushed all the way in, idk why it wasn't working. thanks for the help though!

A simple one to start off. A program that was created so people can read Wikipedia if their Internet connection is down, or if access was blocked for some reason. Later extended to support other content, like old books that are out of copyright, docs for programming languages and the ArchWiki.

It gets the job done, even if the interface isn't the clearest. As far as I can tell it doesn't support any auto-updating, so it seems you do have to download a whole new version of each site when you want new stuff.

Have you used Kiwix? What do you think?

What do we mean by Home Computing?

Home computing is one of the greatest inventions of the late 20th century. Emerging from a time when only large organisations had computing power, ordinary people gained the ability to run computers independently in their own homes, without needing to connect to a machine owned by somebody else.

In the last couple of decades, however, Big Tech has been trying to reverse this, forcing people back to a centralised model with cloud computing, apps that only work when connected to the Internet, and people's personal files held in an online account that can be deactivated at any time by the platform hosting it.

But this isn't a community for complaining about them. This is a community for discussing ways to bring computing back into our homes.

This community isn't against using the Internet entirely, of course. Some uses of the Internet cannot be performed offline, such as sending messages to other people, or running software updates. These are perfectly reasonable. What's not reasonable is being expected to connect to someone else's server and log into an account for every little computing task.

Good posts

• Asking for recommendations for home computing hardware/software
• Giving recommendations for home computing hardware/software
• Asking for help setting up home computing hardware/software

Bad posts

• Articles and/or rants about the latest example of centralisation committed by big tech (we know big tech sucks, that's why we are here)