The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

[Rusty Metal Skull Gun]

But think of the benefits.

There's no way they'd be worth the sheer amount of labour involved. That's probably something like 20 man-years of work.

 

[Gargamel]

There's no way they'd be worth the sheer amount of labour involved. That's probably something like 20 man-years of work.

Wayland is approaching that.

 

[The Ugly One]

Yet I often hear that retro gaming on windows pretty much requires an era appropriate computer, because new windows won’t run old games and old windows won’t work right in VMs. It’s been my experience that Wine is very reliable for old windows software.

64-bit Win 10/11 no longer have 16-bit application support. For anything that had a 16-bit DOS executable involved, you need DOSBOX or some other emulator.

 

[Sperg Coalition]

I don’t think either OS is strictly better here, but it is ironic how, if you want to run old software in Linux, you’re usually better off running the windows version with Wine than the Linux version directly.

It is pretty ironic but then again depends on how old the software actually is. Maybe I got lucky when running old software, who knows.

 

[Betonhaus]

. This KDE/Gnome/Wayland/X/etc slapfight is one of the major reasons software support sucks on Linux. Linux world had no problem standardizing on bash, GLIBC, and other GNU tools, all the copes and excuses for why it can't get its shit together for the GUI are just that, copes and excuses

Here's the thing. Gnome, the closest thing that Linux has to a default desktop environment and is the one most software is made to support, is fucking awful. 90% of desktop environments exist for the sole reason that gnome devs refuse to include features that make the os much more useful, and actively block the use of mods to add those features. If it turns out Gnomes devs were actually Microsoft or Apple fans that are completely dedicated to keeping Linux unpopular, I'd believe it.

 

[TheDataHorder]

Yet I often hear that retro gaming on windows pretty much requires an era appropriate computer, because new windows won’t run old games and old windows won’t work right in VMs. It’s been my experience that Wine is very reliable for old windows software.

depends on the game/software.
some games downright refuse to run on modern windows, wine or proton.
sometimes its because its doing some kind of hack that nobody expected or it could be trying to access a library that doesn't exist.
I've had pretty good results with old windows games in vmware but its a pain to get these old games working regardless what you're running them on.

 

[Celebrate Nite]

I fucking hate PulseAudio so much.

Ditto. It's why I went for a non-systemd distro. Before when i was using PulseAudio, half the time i was having audio issues, including in the internet browser of all things. Ever since i made the switch it just works, and i can edit and listen to audio without any issues. Audio is VERY important to me considering it relates to one of my hobbies.

 

[Susanna]

Ditto. It's why I went for a non-systemd distro. Before when i was using PulseAudio, half the time i was having audio issues, including in the internet browser of all things. Ever since i made the switch it just works, and i can edit and listen to audio without any issues. Audio is VERY important to me considering it relates to one of my hobbies.

Systemd is not dependent on PulseAudio, don't let your silly grognardry against systemd turn you stupid.
I'm on NixOS, the most systemd dependent distro there is, and switching to pipewire was as simple as services.pipewire.enable = true;

 

[AmpleApricots]

If you don't use bluetooth audio and otherwise don't need anything special from audio (like changing outputs etc.) besides working, just use plain ALSA. Write an /etc/asound.conf to use dmix so multiple programs can use the audio hardware at once. It really isn't hard and if you do it once you'll never have to touch it again.

If you use bluetooth, you can try bluealsa. Using it with dmix is a bit of a hack though. For the occasional pre-compiled software that insists on pulseaudio, there's apulse.

 

[The Pulverizer]

64-bit Win 10/11 no longer have 16-bit application support. For anything that had a 16-bit DOS executable involved, you need DOSBOX or some other emulator.

It's not just DOS games though. There's games from the early 2000's that don't work on modern Windows because of Microsoft's retarded dependencies and their shitty updates that break everything. Why can I run a native Linux game from the 90's and Microcucks can't run a game from fucking 10 years ago? Inferior software.

Not to mention the fucking Games for Windows Live scandal. Microsoft definitely doesn't support retro gaming.

 

[The Ugly One]

Here's the thing. Gnome, the closest thing that Linux has to a default desktop environment and is the one most software is made to support, is fucking awful.

Correct. I last used MATE (I only use the terminal now), which is also awful, but in a very no-frills kind of way.

90% of desktop environments exist for the sole reason that gnome devs refuse to include features that make the os much more useful, and actively block the use of mods to add those features. If it turns out Gnomes devs were actually Microsoft or Apple fans that are completely dedicated to keeping Linux unpopular, I'd believe it.

Linux's desktop problem comes back to two fundamental problems. One is that, like it or not, Stallman's "GNU plus Linux" copypasta really is correct. Linux kernel + GNU really is the base assumption for what's in a Linux distro. The problem isn't GNU as such, it's that Stallman is a toejam-eating sperg, so GNU and everything adjacent to it is part of the stallmanverse of toejam-eating spergs. GNOME isn't technically part of GNU any more, but it was, so there you go.

The second problem is that, without significant corporate backing, a FOSS project tends to focus on only things developers find interesting to work on. Good UI/UX is a long, thankless grind of technically uninteresting tasks. Writing a new graphics API is cool and fun, and plenty of people will do it for little more than passion and glory. Changing menu layouts and button sizes is boring as fuck, and people will not do it unless they are paid. Making sure your import of a kludgy old Microsoft format from 2002 is flawless is boring as fuck, and people will not do it unless they are paid. Etc.

 

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64-bit Win 10/11 no longer have 16-bit application support. For anything that had a 16-bit DOS executable involved, you need DOSBOX or some other emulator.

I'm sorry that you haven't yet moved on from WordPerfect for DOS. For everyone else, WineVDM runs SkiFree just fine.

I'm not going to copy the whole thing because it's a mile long. He does a detailed inspection of the app, click the link if you're curious.

Hey, anyone remember when one of the chief promises of 'Linux On The Desktop' was that you could just install apps from a package manager, that it would be efficient, and that they wouldn't be a complete scam by some pajeet designed to steal your money? THANKS CANONICAL

 

[Rusty Metal Skull Gun]

The second problem is that, without significant corporate backing, a FOSS project tends to focus on only things developers find interesting to work on. Good UI/UX is a long, thankless grind of technically uninteresting tasks. Writing a new graphics API is cool and fun, and plenty of people will do it for little more than passion and glory. Changing menu layouts and button sizes is boring as fuck, and people will not do it unless they are paid. Making sure your import of a kludgy old Microsoft format from 2002 is flawless is boring as fuck, and people will not do it unless they are paid. Etc.

Very much this. I've found that every non-trivial passion project eventually reaches the point of diminishing returns - where there's still stuff to do, but it feels too much like an actual job to do it.

 

[The Ugly One]

I'm sorry that you haven't yet moved on from WordPerfect for DOS.

> not using the greatest word processor ever made

How many levels of Luddite are you even on?

Very much this. I've found that every non-trivial passion project eventually reaches the point of diminishing returns - where there's still stuff to do, but it feels too much like an actual job to do it.

FOSS evangelists, 2001: "And we'll have bug-free software, because if the user finds a bug, they can just fix it right away!"

FOSS reality, 2024: "You're not in the inner circle of tranny furfags, who the fuck do you think you are, pushing your bugfix to my repo? This bug isn't even important. Issue closed as wontfix, motherfucker."

 

[Rusty Metal Skull Gun]

FOSS evangelists, 2001: "And we'll have bug-free software, because if the user finds a bug, they can just fix it right away!"

FOSS reality, 2024: "You're not in the inner circle of tranny furfags, who the fuck do you think you are, pushing your bugfix to my repo? This bug isn't even important. Issue closed as wontfix, motherfucker."

You have no idea how hard I'm fighting the urge to power-level right now.

 

[DavidS877]

I'm sorry that you haven't yet moved on from WordPerfect for DOS.

not using the greatest word processor ever made

That's a funny way to say WordStar for CP/M.

 

[Betonhaus]

You have no idea how hard I'm fighting the urge to power-level right now.

Do you have experience with tranny furfags?

 

[Rusty Metal Skull Gun]

Do you have experience with tranny furfags?

More than I'd care for

 

[The Ugly One]

You have no idea how hard I'm fighting the urge to power-level right now.

You can always tell who's never tried to contribute to a major FOSS project because they'll say shit like, "Anybody can contribute to an open-source project," and not, "I burn with hatred for the repo's maintainers and wish eternal fiery death upon them."

 

[Betonhaus]

Open source projects also have the problem of programmers choosing to write a project from scratch instead of contributing to an existing project that is only lacking in the one thing that the from scratch project excels at. For example I've found that Jellyfin is pretty much the best way to access my ebooks from my phone and computers while retaining read progress, but the eReader is incredibly bare bones and missing many nice to have features. There exists several web-based eReader programs that are only being worked on by one developer and is missing a bunch of core functionality, but has the nice to have features like page numbers and better navigation that Jellyfin lacks. If one would stop focusing on their project and work on contributing to the Jellyfin project, they could make an overall feature complete project even better