I think this conflates "ecosystem" with "closed ecosystem" or "walled garden."

I agree that closed ecosystems are frustrating lock-in tactics. But open ecosystems exist - KDE connect actually shows a good example. It was built for the KDE ecosystem (desktop environment, apps, and services that integrate and work well with each other), but makes the protocol open, so clients can exist for Gnome, and other platforms.

I recognize this is mostly semantics, but wanted to call it out because I think the integration and interoperability afforded by an "ecosystem" is extremely user friendly in general. It only becomes a problem when it is weaponized to lock you in.

Google is certainly guilty of killing off lots of products, but:

The video demonstrates the ecosystem working now, using features that have existed for years, most of which work across hardware platforms from multiple vendors, as well as multiple operating systems (i.e. features that won't disappear on Google's whim, because they don't actually control the tech, they leverage open standards, etc).

Let's also not pretend like Apple has never killed a product, service, or feature. Ecosystems grow, shrink, and change all the time. If you prefer one offering over the other, use it. That's the entire point of the video.

Kamp Krusty

Homer at the Bat, season 3.

Two Bad Neighbors

Not sure if it's what you're looking for, but lirc has a database. Instructions for contributing files can be found here, files should adhere to the checklist here.

I currently have a System76 laptop, and sincerely regret my purchase. When I purchased it, the Framework was not out yet - I wanted to support a company that supports right-to-repair, and figured since they controlled the hardware, firmware, and software (Pop!_OS), it would be a good, stable experience. It has not been, and support has generally been poor. I know other people have had better experiences than I have, but personally, I won't be buying from them again.

I haven't personally used Purism, but former co-workers spoke really poorly of them. They were trying to buy a big batch for work, and said the build quality was awful. Additionally: https://youtu.be/wKegmu0V75s

Thanks! I just cross posted it.

If you like note taking software: https://youtu.be/XRpHIa-2XCE

Yeah, gadgetbtidge was my first thought as well. I've never used it, but in theory it would allow you to control devices without the proprietary app. See the link below for supported devices:

https://gadgetbridge.org/

Can you describe your use case more?

I don't think format matters - if you've got multiple processes writing simultaneously, you'll have a potential for corruption. What you want is a lock file. Basically, you just create a separate file called something like my process.lock. When a process wants to write to the other file, you check if the lock file exists - if yes, wait until it doesn't; if no, create it. In the lock file, store just the process id of the file that has the lock, so you can also add logic to check if the process exists (if it doesn't, it probably died - you may have to check the file you're writing to for corruption/recover). When done writing, delete the file to release the lock.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_locking, and specifically the section on lock files.

This is a common enough pattern there are probably libraries to handle a lot of the logic for you, though it's also simple enough to handle yourself.

When you install, whatever you install, partition your drive so that /home is it's own partition. Then if/when you reinstall, distrohop, whatever, you don't have to worry about copying over your data. Just use the same /home partition, and format the others. You can actually use this to try multiple distros at the same time - you can install them in different partitions, but have every install use the same /home partition. This is a nice way to test new distros without blowing away your stable install.

Now, for my distro recommendation - Ubuntu gets a lot of hate, but honestly, after 15+ years of Linux, and having tried Mint, Fedora, Arch, Manjaro, and many others, I always end up back on Ubuntu. It's easy, it's stable, and it stays out of my way.

The defaults are good, but you can customize as much as you want, and they offer a minimal install (as of 23.10, it is the default) which comes with very few applications, so you can start clean and choose all the applications you want.

Unless you are excited to tinker, I'd really recommend starting simple. Personality, I just want the OS to facilitate my other activities, and I otherwise want to forget about it. Ubuntu is pretty good for that.