The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

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Slav Power said:
making Linux better on every level.
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On one hand I really want more people off of propriejeet OSes, but on the other, I have a sinking feeling that it will lead to further "just wekrs lolololo" ease-of-use-maxxing & centralization (read: enshittification). RTFM culture should really make a comeback for real for real.
 
Ferryman said:
On one hand I really want more people off of propriejeet OSes, but on the other, I have a sinking feeling that it will lead to further "just wekrs lolololo" ease-of-use-maxxing & centralization (read: enshittification). RTFM culture should really make a comeback for real for real.
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Either one or the other. There is a reason those "ease-of-use-maxxing" OS' have the market dominance and you can't eat your cake and have it at the same time. You can't expect your average layman to suddenly become a techie, since that's the only way you can achieve your utopian future of people moving to Linux and Linux not becoming a closed off piece of shit just to make sure nothing can break for the average user that knows jackshit about what they're using and are just expecting it to work. Thing is that Linux is still at fight with itself over such basics like "how to render windows" where you have the whole XLibre/Wayland debacle while Windows' windows "just werked" ever since DWM was introduced in Vista and never had to be touched since, so it's not like Windows 11 becoming worse and worse will make people consider Linux as their main alternative any time soon. Macs, Chromebooks and smartphones are still around the corner waiting for those millions of Windows users to migrate.

The only reason Linux users don't see a problem with how much of a clusterfuck Linux desktop is and how they refuse to fix it is the same reason why Windows users go above and beyond to unfuck the constantly fucking up shitfest that is Windows 10/11 and refusing to switch to an alternative: they're used to it, they don't see a problem with it, they don't want to change. We can't have a good OS for everyone because it's the same common stubborn mentality that keeps undermining that goal and to me it seems like absolutely no one cares about making good software anymore and instead treats OS' like political parties. Your party is shit, my party is great, join my party or fuck you, no I don't care about the politics let's argue about which party good. Pretty much all Windows vs Linux arguments and persuasions boil down to this shit and it only helps to create more animosity than constructive discussion to try and make a better future.

The fact that Linux is a ridiculously ideologically fractured ecosystem only makes the goal of unifying under the idea of making good software even more impossible, and that's the only alternative from the ever encompassing corporate enshittification of what used to be good products. Good luck trying to get the entire Linux development community together to decide on how to build the Linux desktop once and well like Dave Cutler built Windows NT once and well without resulting in an xkcd 927 scenario again.
 
Slav Power said:
Your party is shit, my party is great, join my party or fuck you, no I don't care about the politics let's argue about which party good.
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You raise a very good point. Ultimately, I think that the best way to go about things is to attempt to teach newcomers healthy practices when it comes to interacting with FOSS projects; reading readmes, reporting bugs, having at least a basic understanding of bash and so on.

I don't know how you can make peole want to learn these things, or to become even 1% invested in FOSS and its ongoings, other than to make it seem approachable and make it seem fun. Joe Schmoe isn't going to give a fuck about the tranny coups in the depths of the Void repos, no, he's going to want to learn to update his system, open his browser, send his emails and install his apps. First impressions are wildly important, that's why I'm so glad that people recommend Mint, MX or other intuitive distros as starting points for learning Linux. But still, I don't think users should just be handed everything o na silver platter. Instead, they should be invited to tinker & get their hands dirty in order to make things work. Picture a little toggle you can click on in the Mint installer that enables "guidance" or some other random UX buzzword. Then, have that button link the GUI installer to a CLI interface, to show the user how things work under the covers, and maybe even invite them to try doing it themselves next time. In turn, by getting people to work on their own stuff, change things by hand and learn some of the nuts and bolts behind Linux, I am optimistic that it can make them respect the effort and dedication that goes into others' projects as well, and to value it over trite political games.

Yes, it's fantastically optimistic, but I desperately want a world where more people see computers as something fun again. Not just for gayming, but to use in general. And I really think that the influx of new users can help us take a step in that direction, if given proper guidance. To get back down to earth for a sec, how do you even go about doing this without immediately getting felted by whoever manages to out-intuit everyone else? I doubt that Gnome and Artix are suddenly going to hold hands and sing koombayah for the "greater good" of thwarting [insert evil corporation here].
 
Betonhaus said:
What's better qt or gtk
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Anything else that isn't some convoluted interconnected bullshit using web design paradigms, such as xaw, fltk, motif. I tolerate GTK3 and I now have such a basic ass list of gui programs that I don't go out of my way for Qt even though it beats out GTK in a key few areas.

Motif designs had a lot going for them: implemented illusionary shadows for individual elements, felt satisfying to click.

These days I find mouse-friendly CLI stuff nifty. Sure they are made for keyboards, but it's satisfying seeing curses-like interfaces accept mouse input.
 
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Dread First said:
FreeBSD
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just use gentoo at that point its a lot smoother/easier.

Ferryman said:
reporting bugs
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I would at least like to see this become a thing. I think people should encourage it a bit more. For when new people run into something actually broken.

It's one of the main ways non-technical people in open-source can actually contribute. I think a lot of people coming from windows, and mac aren't used to that being a concept. On those if something is broke, it's just broken. You just need to wait and hope it gets fixed later, if you aren't able to get some kind of tech support that somehow gives you a solution, or you report it there. For it to be filed away and forgotten if anything. But in open source one of the great things, is if you run into a program with some issue, you can make a bug report, and depending on the project, or the problem. It can be fixed relatively fast. But either way, you can directly let the people working on the software know about an issue you are running into. And something can be done to fix it.

I think people should really promote that part of open source more. A lot of the time people just talk about things like security. Sure people can audit the code bases (and they do, especially if there are bug bounties, and the like). And there are other nice things about open source. But I think the interactive nature of it, even for people that have never written a line of code in their life is one of the great things about it.
 
I was wondering if a Java WM or DE ever existed and this is the only one I could find. The name of it was Project Looking Glass. It was a FOSS DE published under the GPL & developed by a Sun Software dev. Sun also funded the development of it until Steve Jobs saw it showcased and decided to nuke it with a legal threat. It was platform agnostic, supporting Linux, Solaris (RIP) and allegedly Windows though I haven't been able to find any screenshots of that.

This would be whatever on it's own, until you notice how nuts it was for the time. It was made using the Java 3D system and this allowed them to do a lot of cool stuff. For instance, you could rotate windows & write on the back of them:

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It also placed the names of the windows on the sides so you could rotate them in real time and read each like a book:

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So this was a 3D environment which I don't think we've really seen since then. Environments can do some 3d today, I have seen people hack Godot to be used on Hyprland in order to do some cool things but this is an environment built completely with 3D in mind. That is very impressive, esp for the time.

I wish we had more weird experimental DE and WM projects like this today. I don't know how good this was to use in practice, but I find some ideas to be very interesting - And ofc as the article points out, Apple would later go on to implement something very similar to this for their dashboard widgets. Steve Jobs truly was a talentless cunt.
 
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Slav Power said:
There is a reason those "ease-of-use-maxxing" OS' have the market dominance
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Because they work on getting people when they're young and being the only offerings in the professional world for most people. People grow up being taught how to use Windows and then go to work using Windows. So using Windows at home is much easier than learning something new. Most people don't know anything about Linux.
Apple understood this as well and gained a large following in its early years by focusing on getting Apple computers in schools and offices.

Linux probably won't ever have this unless governments start leaning on it in their own workplaces for a long enough time.
Slav Power said:
The only reason Linux users don't see a problem with how much of a clusterfuck Linux desktop is and how they refuse to fix it is the same reason why Windows users go above and beyond to unfuck the constantly fucking up shitfest that is Windows 10/11 and refusing to switch to an alternative: they're used to it, they don't see a problem with it, they don't want to change.
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This has been the case for every mainstream OS. People settle for what they know. Linux users between distros end up doing this, too.
 
Madison Grant said:

ROG Xbox Ally runs better on Linux than the Windows it ships with — new test shows up to 32% higher FPS, with more stable framerates and quicker sleep resume times​


Not sure if this surprises anyone.
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I cannot imagine how niggerbrained you'd have to be to buy this piece of shit over a Steam Deck. Windows is objectively the worst laptop OS and trying to cram it into a portable device that's even smaller is just asking to get fucked over.

I looked it up and it's more expensive than a base model SD. WHY WOULD YOU BUY THIS EVER
 
Aidan said:
Linux probably won't ever have this unless governments start leaning on it in their own workplaces for a long enough time.
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Aidan said:
Because they work on getting people when they're young and being the only offerings in the professional world for most people.
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Funnily enough my first contact with Linux was back in elementary school. All the computers in informatics class ran Edubuntu, and I remember them teaching us how to use Gimp & Firefox, then later, in high school, how to code really basic C++. Now that I think about it, I know a lot of people who are at least acquainted with Linux because of this. Saint IGNUicus lives in the hearts of youths in underfunded Balkan schools, I tell you🫑🫑🫑
 
The Noise said:
I cannot imagine how niggerbrained you'd have to be to buy this piece of shit over a Steam Deck. Windows is objectively the worst laptop OS and trying to cram it into a portable device that's even smaller is just asking to get fucked over.

I looked it up and it's more expensive than a base model SD. WHY WOULD YOU BUY THIS EVER
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Niggerbrained people see the better performance and thousand dollar price tag and instead of thinking "Oh so that's why the steam deck is cheaper" they think "maaaane steam deck gon finna die n shieet. Xbox rog ally x handheld better maaaane."

Funniest shit is watching Linus from LTT shit his pants trying to come up with excuses for it after shilling it because "Oh they stripped everything that makes windows bloated in the game mode! Its totally better than every other windows handheld! Oh... it's not actually faster... please still consume!"
 
The Noise said:
I cannot imagine how niggerbrained you'd have to be to buy this piece of shit over a Steam Deck. Windows is objectively the worst laptop OS and trying to cram it into a portable device that's even smaller is just asking to get fucked over.

I looked it up and it's more expensive than a base model SD. WHY WOULD YOU BUY THIS EVER
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Because it's more powerful, has nicer looking hardware, and you can install Linux on it easily?
 
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