This is why I use linux!
Yeah, but then someone does the same with systemd, am I right?
/ducks and runs
AA5B @lemmy.world
Yeah, but then someone does the same with systemd, am I right?
/ducks and runs
Exactly what i was thinking XD. How many articles there were about systemd being pushed on linux users and how it was bloatware XD
the best time to switch to linux is a few years ago.
the second best time is now.
I tried Mac os and I thought it was cool until I got docker and it made me make an account. It also in order to change things in the desktop environment you had to pay for apps and I’m cheap. Windows is annoying to me after being on Linux for so long even if they have wsl. My computer broke and I ended up needing Linux to make an old MacBook we had work again is the only reason I switched originally. Developing software I appreciate that the ide and terminal are super convenient to use. Normal people for Linux… Nope. Getting my Bluetooth to work was a 3 hour journey. Normal people use their PC that much in a month where as I use mine 12 hours+ a day.
I use podman like a normal human.
I skimmed an article on enshittification yesterday
It mentioned Windows
Can something be enshittified if it was shit from the start?
It wasn’t shit from the start though, was it.
Back when Windows 95 was a new thing it blew everything else out of the water. Suddenly there was an operating system that even regular people were paying attention to and getting excited about, and it actually deserved the hype.
Windows was a product at that time, where Microsoft made their money by people purchasing the operating system. And so the incentive was to make a great product that people wanted to buy and use.
This was true all the way through the Windows XP and 7 days, and only with the release of 8 and especially 10 did we start to see things change.
Microsoft - who used to put so much effort into trying to prevent people installing cracked Windows - suddenly didn’t seem to care so much anymore about enforcing that. They’d realised that the true exploitable value was in the online ecosystem and the data, not the product, and that was the turning point for everything.
You make a very good point and are clearly a lot more knowledgeable than me.
I’m going to rephrase. Windows 11 was shitty from the start. I can defend that statement, which we both agree with, to save my ego from internal bleeding.
They keep adding shitty things to it.
Just switched from windows to arch with KDE Plasma on my laptop and I have been experiencing so much joy playing with all the wonderful FOSS I never even knew about
I’m at about 19 years since switching - MS reaffirms my decision for me each and every year.
Y’all, for real, I was on Windows for gaming. Gaming on Linux really does seem to “just work” now. I’m using CachyOS. It just works. The only tweak I had to do was to tell Helldivers 2 to use the vanilla version of Proton instead of Cachy’s version. So literally if I was on a more traditional distribution I’d have to do less.
I was absolutely amazed that the new Overwatch game (Marvel Rivals) ran out of the box with GloriousEggroll v23. Kind of a wild sentence.
Same! I thought I wouldn’t be able to play any competitive PVP games!
Mostly you can’t, glad that one runs!
The issue though usually (just for clarity’s sake) isn’t that the games don’t run, usually they’d still run fine, but the DRM is often kernel level and nobody on linux wants that, or the DRM just doesn’t work on linux (fault of DRM company), or everything works but they’ll still ban your acct for playing on linux because fuck you (looking at you Destiny).
The things that don’t run now aren’t usually linux’s fault, it’s the company/DRM every time.
I switched a few years ago. I’ve been using windows for over 30 years. They changed a bunch of random shit I had used in the past. I figured I’d give it a shot.
I never went back. I’m not a coder. I don’t even like tech very much. I’ve been really happy with Ubuntu for years.
I wanted something that just worked. It has.
They say they’re the distribution for humans. Apparently, it is so!
I installed Pop!_OS on a Thinkpad and made it my main work computer. It is the most boring computing experience ever. Nothing ever breaks. It just works.
The Steam Deck was the reason I changed. Used the Deck as my only PC for a couple of months and liked the experience so I changed.
I’ve had OpenSUSE on my PC for over a year now and really like it… But I’ll be honest, the move and troubleshooting problems for setup was a pain in the ass. But it’s stable and steady since I’ve gotten over setup pains.
This year totally is the year of Linux, guys!
Trust me!
Don’t need it to be the year of the Linux desktop for me to switch to use it myself.
The only way Linux ever becomes viable for the mainstream is when there is a single distribution that covers every feature and is as streamlined and user friendly as possible.
- No command lines ever for anything
- huge software compatibility
- hardware compatibility of the newest and oldest of hardware
- easy troubleshooting even your nan can follow
- and most of all: every Linux user agrees it is the best Linux distribution (unless you are into niche stuff)
So until even you guys can agree on one distribution being the best, it will not be the year of the Linux ever.–
I used Linux on and off over the years and will probably switch back to using it when Windows 10 is no longer supported. Linux will never be mainstream but the user base would grow if every Steam game ran on Linux seamlessly. That’s probably never going to happen, though. There will also never be “the one” distro to rule them all. Mint and Ubuntu come pretty close.
It’s honestly getting there. The major barrier at this point is kernel level anti-cheat, which is a bad idea people shouldn’t be using anyway.
I was going to make a crack about you inventing MacOSX, which is at least “Linux adjacent”, but I don’t know how to work without a command line on either Windows or Mac. Some functionality is just so much more inconvenient or even impossible through the GUI, even on those
“How do I do X on Mac”
“First install homebrew, and then install this plugin”
50 plugins later
“There, now I can finally use the GUI”
So Macs run Gnome now?
I always find the command line argument to be a bit of an odd thing too. If you Google any weird Windows error, I can almost guarantee you will find a Microsoft forums result with someone saying to run
sfc /scannow(or a DISM command).What I think it really comes down to is that people are used to troubleshooting Windows stuff that they forget they’re having to do it. Then some will say that “Windows doesn’t need troubleshooting” which is pure crap unless maybe all you do is login and open Chrome - which Linux can do that perfectly fine too.
At the end of the day, I don’t really care all that much about what OS other people use (use the best tool for the job and all that). I’m not going to be using their PC, but I do get a bit aggravated when people seem to go out of their way to make it look like Linux is still the same ecosystem it was in the '00s.
It seems like what you want is a tablet.
Does this apply to Windows as well? Haha
For Linux to go mainstream is simple. Have Linux be default on every computer sold in stores.
Something like 99% of people who go to a store and buy a laptop, does so because they need a device to access their online bank or watch funny videos on YouTube. Maybe check their mail and open a PDF or two.
I think it doesn’t occur to most people to even consider what OS to use on a computer. They just use the computer.
Sure it can’t be uninstalled, but that’s no big deal. Just go to Settings and turn it off.
Of course, software needs to update, so it might get turned back on occasionally. Just go turn it off again.
And all the other stuff you turn off. Every time.
So glad I switched to Linux a year ago, so much bs from Microsoft for exactly this and it was too much bs.
me too
If there’s any new Lemmy users here, coming from Reddit (feel like I’m opening a seance), and if you’re wondering what else you might decide to change during this era of change -
Try Linux! It’s easy now, and frankly just better :)
If ur new to Linux try mint. Dont try arch or gentoo or some other distro cos someone said it was cool. Take the basic Linux mint and get urself comfortable with it first.
Fedora is pretty nice too.
Yes, I’m new to Lemmy, ex-Reddit, and now I’m looking at what else I can do. I ran Linux Mint on an old laptop for many years, but that was when I was still working and I also had a company laptop on Windows if I needed it. So now I’m retired and currently I only have a refurbished Lenovo with Win 10, which goes out of support soon. I suppose I could do dual boot on that machine, but I’d rather have Windows in a VM for the rare occasions when I can’t get something to run in Wine. I have no idea where I’d buy a copy of Win 11, but presumably Microsoft have a store.
To be real Linux is far from ready to be an all in all viable alternative to windows.
The fact that it has a hundred desktops. An absence of major software like ms office. Adobe and autodesk suites, and not being able to avoid the command line when shit hits the fan. Will make users choose to purchase new hardware rather than make the jump.
I bet Linux will make a 2% after win 10 end of support.
It has a hundred desktops
Are you referring to distros? Just pick one that’s widely used and that’s it.
An absence of major software like ms office. Adobe and autodesk suites
You can use it online. Or, even better, use something like LibreOffice. For adobe and autodesk you’re SOL but that’s very intentional and it sucks. The only solution is a VM.
and not being able to avoid the command line when shit hits the fan.
I don’t really get this. You can’t avoid using cmd on windows either when shit goes wrong. There’s nothing strange there.
It really depends on your use-case, your criticism is valid though. In general it would be way better for new users to not learn about it as something that gets slapped onto a Windows machine, but on fair grounds for comparison (meaning on a machine from hardware vendors like System76, Tuxedo, Slimbook etc).
For Software it really is a hen-and-egg problem. Big companies won’t support Linux until enough people are there, and enough people won’t come until known software is available. This however changes gradually; The Software Store is receiving payment features in the future (almost any distro uses Flatpaks in the background), so there will be more viable paths to monetize your software product for companies. Meanwhile the amount of users rises more and more for years now thanks to 1. Valves push with SteamOS + Hardware and 2. India and China who got comparably high Linux userbases (I think in India it’s 13% of all desktop PCs).
So yeah, not there yet. But not “far from ready”, really. It just needs some software improvements that are in the works, and for the device vendors to become more known.
What most Linux advocates hate to admit is that the abundance of distributions discourages software makers from supporting Linux. Because then they will have to deal with bugs specific to each distribution, desktop environment, window manager, x.org or Wayland, and thousands of other variables. Imagine having to spin up a different virtual environment for each use case. It’s a nightmare that isn’t worth it for them.
I don’t think that’s the main problem, as on the inside (meaning backends) most things are rather standardized (ignoring legacy stuff) and any distro not adhering to those modern standards can be - purely from an economic aspect, NOT a nerd or enthusiast aspect - safely ignored. I do concur that choice paralysis indeed is a problem though.
The modern stack is pretty straight-forward: Flatpak and Snap for distribution, GTK4 (opt. with or without libadwaita) or Qt6 for the UI, Gnome and KDE to take care for proper integration, and stuff like Wayland, Pipewire and the XDG specs to focus on in technical aspects. All the documents necessary to work on fully functioning apps to publish via both Flatpak and Snap are there (not saying everything is perfect, just that it’s properly working). Distro-specific bugs will also be either prevented by the new sandboxing or are to be fixed by the distro in 99% of all cases, not the app author. What’s really missing right now is a way to sell it through those hubs.
Eventually there’ll be sufficient pressure on all sides so common technical necessities will be defined that distros will have to adhere to if they want to receive app support (which is very much possible given the sandboxing around Flatpaks and Snaps). Until then every company keeps freely defining what they support. Right now they usually go two or three big ones, namely Ubuntu, RHEL+Fedora and perhaps SteamOS. Some also go for OpenSuse, probably because they use SLES for their own machines.
Meanwhile commercially developed distros - meaning stuff like Pop!_OS (System76 devices), SlimbookOS (Slimbook devices), Tuxedo OS (Tuxedo Computers) - all use Flatpaks, and as they all integrate it as intended apps work on them as they do on any other distro that uses the modern stack. So customers don’t have to think too much about it.
tl;dr… Don’t give new users too many options (avoids choice paralysis) but 1 or 2 modern ones or whatever a hardware vendor offers, and don’t expect developers to target distros that do not want to fully support either Flatpaks or Snaps. Then we’re already on a good way.
@Natanox @mtchristo
>Flatpak and Snap for distribution, GTK4 (opt. with or without libadwaita) or Qt6 for the UI, Gnome and KDE to take care for proper integration, and stuff like Wayland, Pipewire
I do not have anything of this in my system and will not install any app that requires to support all of this.
Flatpak even cannot work without namespaces (which is not enabled in kernel defconfig). If you want to make flatpak default option to distribute apps, first make sure it does not require enabling some (possibly insecure) kernel configurations and work on default kernel
Wayland (in current implementation) is error. Flatpak/snap is error.
Before all of this, all we need to make app work is some x11 libraries, so app can bundle it’s needed portable toolkit and run without any additional requirements. Now we cannot just provide wayland-client, because app cannot draw with it. It needs opengl, which needs many libraries, which… cannot be provided in compatible way, so you need container bullshit that runs other distro inside… only to run some graphical app that draws few buttons…
Really, i’ll prefer using windows, not this bullshit.
Now flatpak causes people ignoring new glibc compatibility bugs, so it soon will be impossible to build portable binary for glibc systems… Even now Portable Executable (windows exe) is most portable way to distribute software for linux, because wine gives compatibilty that glibc cannot (or jusn do not want). And sometimes wine even have less memory overhead than flatpak/snapI do not have anything of this in my system and will not install any app that requires to support all of this.
What are you using, a potato? Any modern distro comes with those. Without GTK4 and Qt6 barely anything even runs, lol.
I mean, you can reject literally everything of this new technology stack, but that doesn’t change the fact it’s things are working now. If you stay with old tech don’t be surprised if things stop working though, the world will move even if you prefer to stand still. However if you want to be taken serious in your criticism please inform yourself on what you’re criticize. Neither Flatpak nor Snap run “another distro inside”. What you’re talking about is stuff like Docker or Distrobox. Those are neither the default on user systems nor should they be, only very few distros aimed at enthusiasts and professionals ship them by default.
There are also multiple ways to ship portable apps, the best known of them would be AppImage. That one simply isn’t recommendable due to a lack of maintenance and security issues (they simply don’t fix the libfuse2 issue).
It’s not like everything was great in ye’ olden days anyway. There literally are FOUR different backends for desktop notifications, Pulseaudio is a friggin’ trainwreck and don’t even get me started on Xorg configuration. Every desktop environment very much did their own thing and once you installed an app using f.e. GTK2 on a KDE3 system the whole thing looked like it recently insulted Mike Tyson since there was no proper config available / it lacked the icon theme / the font broke everything / it didn’t like your hairstyle. Likewise running older software more often than not was a real pain as they expected an environment with obsolete libraries etc.
Like it or not, Flatpak and Snap already are the standard. So is Wayland (and it works like a charm by now), and Pipewire is a god damn godsend after meddling with Pulseaudio all those years. And from a developer’s perspective it’s so nice to have a controllable environment to work with, i.e. Flatpak and Snap. Of those two only Snap generates huge overheads btw, it’s a known problem with Canonicals approach (one of many). Still, technology like that is what Linux needs for the future.
But hey, ultimately Linux gives you the choice. If you want to stay in your niche I hope it suits you well.
However if you want to be taken serious in your criticism please inform yourself on what you’re criticize
they simply don’t fix the libfuse2 issue
Neither Flatpak nor Snap run “another distro inside”
The flatpak runtimes are huge and are another distro in practice, just check the contents of the gnome runtime and you will see it is another distro.
Flatpak also depends on namespaces which paranoid distros disable and cause issues. Which the person you responded to talked about it and you ignored all together lol
Fixed 3 years ago
This contradicts their own wiki. Type 2 AppImages do use libfuse2, which is the problem.
Flatpak also depends on namespaces which paranoid distros disable and cause issues. Which the person you responded to talked about it and you ignored all together lol
Because it makes absolutely no sense what he said. Even in the github thread you linked it is said that namespaces are enabled by default in the kernel nowadays, and any alternative would be more insecure. With the exception of Ubuntu (which uses Snaps) any major distro either comes with Flatpak already installed or the ability to do so with just 3 commands that do not change anything in the kernel. Like, he got it backwards: you have to disable namespaces (and by doing so break any non-legacy kind of virtualization or sandboxing) by default.
The flatpak runtimes are huge and are another distro in practice, just check the contents of the gnome runtime and you will see it is another distro.
I think our definitions vary. What I was thinking about when hearing “another distro” was stuff like Docker, where another kernel, package manager etc. gets loaded. Do you just talk about size?
Wait, what distros use flatpak by default?
I don’t even know where to begin… Fedora, Pop!_OS, KDE Neon, elementary OS, Tuxedo OS, Slimbook OS, any Ubuntu flavour that doesn’t default to Snap, Zorin, Nobara, Mint… and any distro that comes with KDE that doesn’t activate Flathub by default (e.g. OpenSuse) got the “Add Flathub” button built-in right in Discovery.
If you want your app to be accessible to as many distros as possible while retaining control over its distribution, Flatpak (and unfortunately Snap) really is the primary way to do so. Once KDE e.V. and the Gnome Foundation finish their efforts to support payments and ownership handling it’s also the golden way for any developer who wishes to make a living with their craft.
Oh lol, that is a lot. I’ve only used ubuntu, Debian, Fedora (i3 spin, which I believe had only dnf as a package manager), endeavouros, arch and researched nixos (which I’m definitely trying next) so I’ve never actually had flatpak preinstalled to my knowledge.
Edit: A little bit of a cathartic rant to people who will understand lol. I love you all. <3
Echo chamber or not, I’m happy to finally be back on Lemmy and see some damn community positivity about Linux for a change. It isn’t perfect but it’s beautiful and it’s worth it and it’s ours.
It’s a resistance instrument over ever-entitled, creeping corporate control over our lives, it’s not “better Windows”, it’s just better.
I just got super bummed out reading a bunch of those bizarre “Normal people can’t be bothered and it doesn’t instantly just work with a single button push so it’s too complicated and everyone will hate it forever.” Tirades… You know the ones…
The kicker… That was after I stumbled from an unrelated link into /r/linux !!, when someone was asking how to help people not be “so scared” to try Linux.
Huge, angry posts about how it can’t stand up to proprietary capital-ware, and asking users to click a button or type a word “is just too much.” It’s freaking sad.
I dunno if the reddit brigading just got super bad or they’re all self-loathing over there. But it was weird. And bitter.
I’m happy with our operating-system punk movement, where we invite artists and gamers and coders and family members to learn something and have their computing experience back, since we can’t go back to the 00’s when computing was an activity and the Internet was a place.
The servile corporate wageslaves who disregard their rights and throw a fit whenever they need to troubleshoot something, can keep their bloated service-appliances and their self righteous corpo-simp attitudes, whilst loudly announcing “tHe DeSkToP iS dYiNg” and “aNdRoiD iS LiNuX.” They can keep it.
Meanwhile we welcome the curious, and the seeking, and those wanting something more.
I don’t care if we’ll never get “critical mass adoption.” Part of me hopes I never see Linux getting talked about in mainstream TV news or something, because that’s when the grifters will descend like vultures and corporations and states will be wanting a piece of it.
But hey I’ll gladly take the time to help someone discover it and enjoy it as much as possible so it can be even greater than it is today. I’ll gladly release my work to be Linux compatible and donate to software that changes my life for the better every day.
I’ll gladly troubleshoot a little, and be patient, and donate when I can, and report bugs, and share what I’ve learned. Because we’re in this community together, and Open Source belongs to all of us, and you’re doing a great job.
The servile corporate wageslaves who disregard their rights and throw a fit whenever they need to troubleshoot something,
This is what drives me fucking nuts. Somehow everyone seems to forget that they are constantly troubleshooting “the computer” for the people that they would have to troubleshoot “Linux” for. And why is that such a complaint? After all:
and asking users to click a button or type a word “is just too much.” It’s freaking sad.
Nobody who has had to deal with computers has gotten away from going through some esoteric help website with commands like “win+R,” then “sysinfo” or “regex” or whatever, clicking through a five layer deep directory, and changing something. Alternatively, you might have been forced to uninstall a driver and reinstall an older version, or update bios with a usb. The only difference with linux is the instructions you’ll be following will be for a terminal line, MAYBE. Just as an example of what you’ll find if you’re searching for help with linux. They have instructions for if you have no earthly idea what you’re doing. No one can tell me that you had that much hand holding when you were having to figure out why the hell the windows update wouldn’t install without giving you a bluescreen of death.
Yeah i still use reddit alongside lemmy as well, and i started noticing that the pcmasterrace subreddit had more and more post complaining about linux users. It got so annoying that i ended up leaving the subreddit. It was kinda ironic because they kept complaining about how linux users bring up the fact that they use linux, but it seemed to me like i saw more posts of people complaining about it instead of actual linux users talking about linux lol
if the best time to switch is always today then if i put it off till tomorrow it will be even better right?
no you would miss a day
