I stick with KDE (Kubuntu) after using GNOME, KDE Plasma, and Cinnamon. I think GNOME lack some settings available in KDE, KDE is the most customizable with a good default, and back then Cinnamon doesn’t have Wayland that some of my apps, especially Waydroid, need. The only thing I hate about KDE is the wallet that keeps popping up by default. GNOME keyring is better IMO. I’m a heavy terminal user tho, for automation with bash script and easier copy-paste from Arch Wiki etc., so mb I not quite representative on DE.

I’m a Taiwanese and interacted with a bunch of Linux users from Mainland China on Mastodon. From what I saw, I don’t think it’s as easy to use Linux in China, mainly due to the Great Firewall. They often need to tweak the mirrors and even tunnel through their VPS overseas.

I came from Mastodon. I think Mastodon does have some good features that haven’t come to Lemmy such as account migration and bio sites verification, while Markdown and no word count limit in Lemmy excels Mastodon. Other difference are more due to the different nature of them, just like Twitter compared to Reddit, for example, more organizations, artists, developers, etc. post on Mastodon.

I think limiting from the platform is not a good option. For some teens with a horrible family (domestic violence for example), social media maybe the only shelter they could turn to. Also, those companies tend to break open web and require an account and even verification in the name of protecting child. DNS blacklist enforced by parents is probably a better option IMO.

Also ban Google. I think we should ban any schoolwork in required courses that requires students to agree to any third-party EULAs, such as Google account and Windows OS. For selective courses, considering the de facto status that many fields don’t have a mature enough open source software, banning is a bit exceeding proportionality IMHO. And offering Windows computer is probably ok as long as it’s not the default choice IMHO.

In my freshman year in the Electrical Engineering department, I took a required computer programming course, the course that I supposed it to be most aware of the existence of GNU/Linux, free format, and so on. However, it uses Google Sheets for homeworks and demands a Google Drive link of an exe for final team project and YouTube link for presentation. When they let students evaluate each other, I just got a bunch of exe, half of which doesn’t even open in Wine.

I also think they every school should offer NextCloud. Otherwise when team work occurs, Google Drive/Docs/Slides/Sheets is the de facto only choice.

BTW, I think LaTeX with git is more customizable and extensible and should be taught instead of teaching MS Office stuff. I actually take all my notes in LaTeX in a GitHub repo and do reproducible compilations.