I'm one of the weirdos that should be on board with this, but I'm against it. This will do harm to marginalized youth and push younger people to lie and find ways around the ban.
Plus, we saw that in Australia that the lobby behind the ban was in fact an ad agency that makes ads for gambling apps.
Here is France, the ban is probably just a way to avoid legislation against companies selling crap that isn't for kids like vape pens and sports gambling apps.
We were gifted our old work laptops. My partner and I work for the same place. She gave hers to the mother in law after I wiped Windows and put Linux on it.
I gave mine to my son. I figured that my son might want to use the touch screen I went with Gnome because it seemed a little more touch friendly. I told myself it doesn't matter because he is 8 and I can always reinstall.
I chose Debian (Stable) so I wouldn't have to deal with keeping it updated, put a root password to prevent them from going crazy with installing stuff.
I will have to put Scratch on it someday, for the moment he cares about the following:
- the LEGO website to look at instructions
- the music player to listen to soundtracks from his favourite games
- MyPaint for making drawings
He is starting to figure out the idea of folders, deleting things, undo, etc., but hasn't asked for any other software or even games yet.
I am a professor and would like for my son to learn about word processors, spreadsheets, programming, etc.. If he ever asks, I will give him the root password and let him browse the repos. Right now, I'm just happy to see him enjoy it without doing what lots of his friends do: sit in front of YouTube all afternoon.
The first list on the thread is not the greatest advice, in my opinion. But, I suppose that is a good way to start a thread: mix reasonable with unreasonable. Later commments mix security and privacy together.
I used to be a try-hard. I'm not infosec or a programmer, I'm just a person with a computer. I would install every extension possible that claimed to do something, I encrypted everything, basically following every how-to article willy-nilly and fell down a rabbit-hole[1].
Now I keep things simpler:
- social media has been whiddled down to Fediverse and LinkedIn, phone is degoogled
- I do send many of my important emails encrypted
- My browser has minimal extensions installed --- because I learned about fingerprinting
- No cloud, no AI
- Never use public WiFi at McDonald's or hotels
- I've used Linux for the past 18 or 19 years as my daily, but that isn't a magic shield.
In short: didn't get into hardening; some encryption, no cloud; mostly avoiding social media (LinkedIn will soon be deleted).
I do remember Knoppix. In particular, being able to recover my very important data (ok, fine, it was pirated music) from a computer that wouldn't boot anymore.
I'm a professor. At my school we would never let a student record us. Hell, the school had to force some of the teachers to give out their PPTs so the students could study them. Those profs responded by printing them 6 slides per page.
We also stopped using YouTube for anything more than 5 years ago when the first pre-LLM summary apps appeared online and when students complained about paying to watch YT. Same thing for podcasts.
The subjects I teach can all be taught on the board, so I am lucky.
Within the next 5 years we will be phasing out written evaluations and exams.
I was just thinking about Sonic Pi the other day and watched a few videos online. I only ever played with it briefly years ago(busted out the classic Old MacDonald and Hot Cross Buns jams).
Sorry, that comment is solely based on "desk-study".
I've heard lots of positive and some negative about Linux Phones---and I do want one so bad. I think many of those comments come from Pinephone users who are happy with the device, but upset with battery life, camera quality, other nitpicks, etc..
The Librem is often reported as "overpriced".
And you are using this as your daily driver? Clearly my information is out-of-date.
UPDATE: I just watched some recent videos and read a couple of recent reviews. The librem 5 looks and works great. I guess I'll start putting some money aside.
A Linux phone might not be the best bet, yet. Especially if this is a daily driver. Any "degoogled" phone should be able to access f-droid and get the task app (I use the same app on my degoogled phone).
I think you should start by verifying what phones/bands your operator/network supports. From that list you can check which devices support alternative ROMs.
GrapheneOS is for Pixel phones and is viewed as the "best bet" right now for a variety of reasons. It ships without GSF or alternatives. That may lead to some issues with a handful of apps. I might be wrong here, but I think there are still some tap-to-pay apps that won't work on GrapheneOS and maybe banking apps (??? double-check that claim).
If you don't go for a Pixel and still want to change ROMs, there are options: Lineage, Calyx, /e/, Omni. Bliss, Arrow, iodé, Divest, Replicant, Paranoid, Pixelexperience,...
If that doesn't float your boat, any phone can be partially degoogled without root access. Ok, "degoogled" is a strong word here... But, using ADB you can get rid of lots of Google stuff in terms of apps, the underlying Google services will remain. That is a good starting point though. If you can handle a partially degoogled device without maps, YT, play store, etc., then moving to another device will be easy.
Even after degoogling, many apps will still be available. Signal provides the APK on their site, Anki can be used for Japanese, Aurora store helps out a lot here.