You can trust the software in your distro’s repositories (if you run a distro with well-maintained repositories). This is because, generally only well-known software gets packaged, the packager should be familiar with both the project and the code, and everything is rebuilt on the distro’s own infrastructure, to ensure that a given binary actually corresponds to the source.

It might still be possible for things to slip through, but it’s certainly much safer than random programs from online.

This might be a silly question, but in what ways did it get worse? Is it the size of the keyboard changing, the predictions not being as good anymore or something else?

With my knowledge of tech companies, I’m not exactly surprised, but I’m not an iPhone user and struggling to understand how a keyboard of all things could get worse.

Wait is this how you get up to date when your system is past long term support?

Pretty much! You just modify the apt sources, and upgrade incrementing by each stable release until you reach current stable. Each upgrade guide has a section that points you to the guide for the previous version if your version doesn’t match.

Would not recommend doing backups drunk.

:D in my experience, there’s a certain amount of drink-inspired overconfidence that can be helpful, but it’s very easy to go over. I need more testing to find the exact line - it might also wrap around again if you drink more. More investigation needed :)

There were some breakthroughs in postmarketOS with the BlackBerry KEY2 recently. I really hope a phone with the Blackberry Classic form factor gets good mobile linux support in the next few years (bonus points if it’s a linux-first device!) A physical keyboard (in that form factor) is one of the few things that could convince me to ditch the Librem 5.

I grew up on the tail end of Blackberry’s dominance. Most of the people in my school had a Blackberry, I’ve always envied those keyboards, and I feel really nostalgic about them.

There’s something special about that form factor that appeals to me more than the N900 or clamshell designs. I think it’s that they’re happy to compromise the screen for a great keyboard, rather than the other way round.

By dumbing down the suite, are you talking about things like flatpak / atomic distros?

If so, I am also not a fan of those things - give me Debian stable and the software in the repos and I’m happy - but I also don’t think I will be harmed by others coming in and trying different approaches. From what I can tell, with each paradigm shift, the old approach doesn’t go away, but stays powered by the volunteers who care about it.