Question: How does EndeavourOS with KDE Plasma reduce RAM usage versus KUbuntu by a whole GB?
Background: I am increasingly fed up with Gnome/GTK (especially v4, v5) and am pleasantly surprised by KDE Plasma, Breeze, EndeavourOS! Plus, I have found out that every software I use (software development, simulation, CAD, etc.) either already uses Qt or has a good Qt version! (except LibreOffice and Firefox) The issue is that my ISP is just stuck blocking one of the Arch mirrors; calling it a malware threat. Even if I remove that mirror from my list of mirrors, my ISP still complains. I tried a few Ubuntu based options since my ISP has no issue with it, my simulation software is tested against it, and I hear with 26.04 that nvidia support is great. However, KUbuntu uses so much more RAM than the rest. I might just have to opt for LUbuntu for the extra head room, but I still want to use the better theming of KDE Plasma if I can. I am open to suggestions.
How about using your own DNS servers to see if the ISP restrictions can be bypassed. If you do not have any issues then Google DNS or Cloudflare DNS servers are pretty good. Please do note that using any one of these, i.e. Google DNS or Cloudflare DNS, is a very big privacy hole. Both of these harvest a lot of your data and sell it out.
In terms of privacy, I would hold Cloudflare to a higher standard than Google (DNS Benchmark - Privacy: who collects less data?). But if privacy is a concern for you, then I would recommend Quad9 instead, with Cloudflare as fallback.
Fair enough. You know who else can get this information? Your ISP and/or your VPN. Do you trust them? I certainly wouldn’t trust either.
The entire TCP/IP network stack is a privacy nightmare if you distrust every single service in the chain. One’s entire life is a privacy nightmare if you distrust everybody and anybody, indiscriminately.
If you don’t want to open up that flood gate, fair enough, but in my eyes, the battle was already lost long time ago and most we can do is reduce the flow.
Fair enough. I personally won’t start it because I’m not interested in continuing. I asked that more because I was thinking that they made DNS servers somehow get more information somehow than the DNS requests you make.
OP, I’m still waiting to see that free -m and ps aux output on all distros.
If someone does not use the DNS of his ISP and instead is using something like cloudflare/google/cloud9 there are tow entities who can see everything. You cannot hinder the ISP unless you use a VPN. but you would leak that again if using Cloudflare or similar. The only solution would be: A trustworthy VPN (hint: does not exist, it needs to break your trust to earn money) combined with your own DNS service which connetcs to “.”, the root servers of the DNS system.
As you cannot achieve the first, at least try to achieve the latter - I use unbound within opnsense, but one could also combine pi-hole with unbound.
The topic’s issue is the ISP is seemingly blocking Arch repositories. If that blocking is being done at the DNS level, then selecting a different DNS provider is a viable way around that.
The privacy issue really only came about as a result of, “if you’re going to use a public DNS, these are your options…”.
Now if it’s not being done at the DNS level and they’re blocking IP’s, then a VPN or proxy is probably going to be the only way around that. Not a “privacy” question, rather trying to solve an issue accessing Arch repositories.
It is not about distrusting everybody. It is about distrusting companies which have a business case around tracking users and capturing user related data. And this is certainly true for google. They are open with their business case. It is not a secret.
Sooo… all of them? Literally all companies, no matter the sector, at some point, will be tempted to bite the forbidden apple if they are on the verge of losing profit. There are so many VPN services that just route your traffic their data centers to snatch up your traffic and sell it, for example. Brave Software has a track record of doing questionable at best decisions as well.
What guarantees that Proton, Mullvad, Tuta or any other respected privacy respecting company will not, at some point, drink the kool-aid and get hundreds more in profit? If your main argument is going to be “but these respected companies”, so what? I had people in my life that I’ve respected that simply put their foot inside my dingleberries and told me to go frick myself. The amount of people that cheat on their romantic partners is extremely high in some areas and in general is whole lot more than zero. We’re evil bastards, down to our core, because we have been hardwired for survival, no matter the moral and value ethics implications such decisions might have.
While there ar no garanties, one can make some sane deicisions. One would be "Never trust known data breachers and data sellers (so don’t use google or cloudflare, they are databrokers, ffs). Another one qould be “trust someone who has a good trtack record AND does earn his money elsewhere” (for example mailbox.org as mailprovider: they transparently show where and why they gave others data and they have profit through their services, not through the data which is gathered with these services. It’s not like black and white, it is a multitude of greys beside the black But yes, google is the darkest black one can imagine, the declared enemy of the free internet.
