The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

[Ferryman]

The funniest part of Windows bloat is how much code is in there just to prevent other code that is in there from breaking things.

Legacy code is a nasty, nasty mess sometimes.

Exactly why I love how the BSDs, especially Net/OpenBSD do things in regards to cleaning up redundant code. One can only imagine how much time and effort it would take to audit current day Windows like that from the bottom up. Might as well rewrite the entire thing at that point.

 

[YoRHa No. 2 Type B]

One can only imagine how much time and effort it would take to audit current day Windows like that from the bottom up. Might as well rewrite the entire thing at that point.

Would it even be possible, even with unlimited time and effort?
Rumours are that Windows 11 is between 60 and 100 million lines of source code, and going off the XP source code leaks I imagine its a flaming pile of spaghetti code hell (was already bad enough back then, imagine now).
I respect Windows developers solely because its a miracle that it can be compiled at all.

 

[Ahriman]

 

[A pig by Jove!]

I doubt MS gives a shit. If they're worried about anything it's SteamOS itself, given the peculiarly timed ASUS partnership announcement right after the SteamOS version of the new Lenovo handheld utterly BTFO'd the Windows one. Even that's a big if.

 

[prollyanotherlurker]

Now Windows users can say "I use Arch BTW" https://github.com/yuk7/ArchWSL

what is the actual use case of WSL? I can't imagine it's very useful for anyone other than developers that want to work on their programs for linux along with windows. Or for sysadmins or something that need to work with linux.

Slackware is amazing, I really love using it. Always put it on computers I never want to touch because its the most stable distro I have ever used, by far.
Also a good just works distro if KDE or Xfce is your thing, which are two sane desktops included out of the box, with their main programs bundled in too.
I never found no automatic dependency resolution to be a problem either, because of how much stuff is included by default.
If you care about bloat so much that a few extra desktop icons hurts you, I think you have bigger problems to deal with.
Slackware current has mpv too. so a lot of Python stuff will be easier to deal with when the next version comes out (one day...)
Gentoo is nice but there's also something comfy about Slackware. I do miss it, my main hardware is too new for 15 and I had trouble with Current last time I tried, but maybe its time to give it another try.

Slackware just felt like way more of a pain to me. Than using distros like gentoo, or arch. Mostly because I don't really care about most of the programs they package. Most of the software I actually use they don't have in the 30Gb of packages they install out of the box. So I had to deal with installing them myself. And if I have to do that. I would much rather just use a distro that has a modern package manager.

It being more unix like isn't much of a selling point to me. Neither is the old school model of how they handle packages. I really do want things to just work. For what I want, gentoo and arch just work. Which could be contradictory to what some people might think. They offer the path of least resistance for me though.

And something that does bother me. That I don't like about slackware, also debian, and ubuntu for that matter. Is how much they clutter up some of the system directories. Like /etc. Maybe just a personal taste thing. But I find it helpful when I'm trying to deal with issues, Or changing settings having them nice and minimal like I get with arch. I only really started caring about it after having some issue I was trying to trouble shoot on debian, and it took me way longer than it would have on something like arch because /etc/X11 was filled with a bunch of preconfigured bullshit that was causing my problem. And I had to look through it all to fix it.

 

[Rust Troony]

Tranny shit thats just fedoras atomic distro with steam preinstalled. Its not unique, nor is it the best "gaming distro". I hate that people tech illiterate tech youtuber shill it.

 

[A pig by Jove!]

what is the actual use case of WSL?

Winfags will tell you you get all the good parts of Linux in a OS that isn't shit. My use case is that I'm being held hostage by a Windows-only company policy and a crumb of Linux is better than nothing at at all.

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

what is the actual use case of WSL?

People with edge cases where cygwin isn't enough

 

[Kosher Dill]

what is the actual use case of WSL? I can't imagine it's very useful for anyone other than developers that want to work on their programs for linux along with windows.

Yeah, pretty much it's for places that expect you to work on Linux code but are too negrified to provide any kind of actual Linux development environment.

Also, I believe the only way to enable case-sensitivity in NTFS directories on Windows (God help you) is to install WSL.

 

[CheepMeds]

Progress on FOSS hopefully getting big government funds.

My pipe-dream is for EU to start carelessly dumping so much money in order to fuck with big established non-EU software brands that it creates a gold rush for good FOSS clones for all the programs I use.

I just want wood-grain accents to come back to computer hardware. I think the rainbow LED shit is gay and tranny coded.

 

[Betonhaus]

My pipe-dream is for EU to start carelessly dumping so much money in order to fuck with big established non-EU software brands that it creates a gold rush for good FOSS clones for all the programs I use

Those programs would crater as soon as the funding dries up

 

[Ferryman]

I know this isn't technically the hardware thread but oh well: I'm thinking of giving my X230 to my sister and kinda want something to replace it as a browsing & travel machine. Word on the street is that X280 thinkpads are getting Libreboot support this month. Already used to the form factor and a newer CPU + NVMe sounds pretty enticing, but soldered RAM is really not. Other thing I'm considering is an EliteBook 820 G2 for 32 gigs of non-soldered DDR3, but going from ye olde schizopad to an HP rig doesn't sit right with me.

 

[prollyanotherlurker]

I know this isn't technically the hardware thread but oh well: I'm thinking of giving my X230 to my sister and kinda want something to replace it as a browsing & travel machine. Word on the street is that X280 thinkpads are getting Libreboot support this month. Already used to the form factor and a newer CPU + NVMe sounds pretty enticing, but soldered RAM is really not. Other thing I'm considering is an EliteBook 820 G2 for 32 gigs of non-soldered DDR3, but going from ye olde schizopad to an HP rig doesn't sit right with me.

I still think the newer thinkpads aren't bad. You won't be able to libreboot them. But you can at least get ddr4 ram that isn't soldered in. And some decent performance for the price. And I generally like the Thinkpad form factor more than other laptops.

Like even the 2018-2020 thinkpads. I would personally prefer. How good they are will depend on the model you get. But you can pay $200 or so and get much more modern hardware. And a decent machine. If you do a bit of looking around on eBay

 

[Dirty Harry]

There will be no version of Openbox for Wayland; that will finally mark the end of life for Openbox after decades of reliable service.

I think XFCE (Xubuntu, Linux Mint XFCE, MX Linux and tons of others) also can not use Wayland and no plans to do so and a ton of distros are based on that. LXQT by default uses Openbox (Lubuntu and some others) or XFWM4 (Debian LXQT). LXDE (my favorite) also uses OpenBox.

The only Windows Manager that is more simple than OpenBox in my opinion is JWM (Joe's Windows Manager). Don't use a tiling manager like i3 or Awesome.

I still use Windows on this desktop I am using but all my laptops run debian based linux.

 

[CheepMeds]

Those programs would crater as soon as the funding dries up

Well, at least we might end up with a sizable amount of good bases for people that care to fork from.

 

[prollyanotherlurker]

I think XFCE (Xubuntu, Linux Mint XFCE, MX Linux and tons of others) also can not use Wayland and no plans to do so and a ton of distros are based on that. LXQT by default uses Openbox (Lubuntu and some others) or XFWM4 (Debian LXQT). LXDE (my favorite) also uses OpenBox.

The only Windows Manager that is more simple than OpenBox in my opinion is JWM (Joe's Windows Manager). Don't use a tiling manager like i3 or Awesome.

I still use Windows on this desktop I am using but all my laptops run debian based linux.

Xfce has Wayland support. And so does lxqt.

 

[WhiteNight]

I think XFCE (Xubuntu, Linux Mint XFCE, MX Linux and tons of others) also can not use Wayland and no plans to do so and a ton of distros are based on that.

Xfce does plan to support Wayland. There is a roadmap page, which shows several missing pieces but nonetheless substantial progress:

https://wiki.xfce.org/releng/wayland_roadmap

 

[Betonhaus]

I know this isn't technically the hardware thread but oh well: I'm thinking of giving my X230 to my sister and kinda want something to replace it as a browsing & travel machine. Word on the street is that X280 thinkpads are getting Libreboot support this month. Already used to the form factor and a newer CPU + NVMe sounds pretty enticing, but soldered RAM is really not. Other thing I'm considering is an EliteBook 820 G2 for 32 gigs of non-soldered DDR3, but going from ye olde schizopad to an HP rig doesn't sit right with me.

Check eBay for refurbished ThinkPad X1 Carbons as they often have 5 years old ones for really cheap that are still very good, like this one I found after 10 seconds of searching

 

[Ferryman]

I still think the newer thinkpads aren't bad. You won't be able to libreboot them. But you can at least get ddr4 ram that isn't soldered in. And some decent performance for the price. And I generally like the Thinkpad form factor more than other laptops.

Like even the 2018-2020 thinkpads. I would personally prefer. How good they are will depend on the model you get. But you can pay $200 or so and get much more modern hardware. And a decent machine. If you do a bit of looking around on eBay

I specifically mentioned the X280 cause Rowe mentioned them as being targeted for this month's release on the LBMK git page, along with X1 Carbons up to Gen 6. Speaking of:

Check eBay for refurbished ThinkPad X1 Carbons as they often have 5 years old ones for really cheap that are still very good, like this one I found after 10 seconds of searching

That's pretty legit. Could probably find a Gen 6 for even cheaper. Running older hardware doesn't really bother me at all as long, though this time around NVMe support would be nice.

 

[Vesperus]

what is the actual use case of WSL?

So you can install Xlibre and finally have a proper compose key, with the bindings in .Xcompose, as God intended.