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Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

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Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#61

Post by X6S1x6Okd1st »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #52
nextos wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like the desktop environment they have developed, Cinnamon. But I agree with this LWN thread about their broken approach to packaging. Furthermore, I tend to find people commenting in LWN really respectful even if they are critical, as it was the case here. We are currently going through a bit of a Cambrian explosion of Linux distributions, but some do have indeed shaky technical foundations. Many distributi…

Cambrian explosion? The main distros (Debian/Ubuntu, RH/Centos, Arch, Mint, Gentoo, Suse, Slackware) haven't changed in like ten years or more, the only relatively recent additions being the Devuan branch of Debian, and Alpine. Or have I overlooked something?

I haven't switched to it as a distro, but I've been defaulting to nix's package manager on top of whatever distro I am actually running.

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#62

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

htns wrote: post #53
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #24

Linux Mint seems to take a fairly regular beating from the Linux community at large, and I'm not sure why. It became fashionable after their ISO downloads were briefly compromised in 2016, and a popular LWN post became the script for people to reiterate every time Mint is mentioned in any capacity.[0] I think it's a terrible shame. For all the stuff I wish it did better, it does so much right that I still overwhelmin…

It was fashionable long before that. IIRC Mint had an embarrassing start being advertised as particularly secure (great for online banking!!) despite not really offering anything good in that department.

The "security" thing is deceptive, although I don't see that any worse than what's currently on ElementaryOS's frontpage[0]:

>Safe & Secure

>We’re built on GNU/Linux, one of the most secure systems in the world. It’s the same software powering the U.S Department of Defense, the Bank of China, and more.

[0] https://elementary.io/

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#63

Post by onli »

htns wrote: post #53
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #24

Linux Mint seems to take a fairly regular beating from the Linux community at large, and I'm not sure why. It became fashionable after their ISO downloads were briefly compromised in 2016, and a popular LWN post became the script for people to reiterate every time Mint is mentioned in any capacity.[0] I think it's a terrible shame. For all the stuff I wish it did better, it does so much right that I still overwhelmin…

It was fashionable long before that. IIRC Mint had an embarrassing start being advertised as particularly secure (great for online banking!!) despite not really offering anything good in that department.

Mint was just weird back then. Ubuntu was so young and had so much things going on, and then came Mint sipping a bit of that energy away. Some users would end up in the Ubuntu support forum I was active at the time and mention they use Mint, and we were like "why would you do that?" In my bubble it felt like a diverging amateur approach (it felt, no idea about whether that was the case) right at the wrong moment with misleading advertisement. That was still very early days for Ubuntu, when users still had to be educated not to break their system with strange and insecure tweak bash scripts downloaded from other forums. And I'd argue it was also before one could understand why you'd want to fork Ubuntu, before there were controversial decisions - especially not with "we make the desktop easier!", Ubuntu was already doing that.

Later on Mint developed its own profile, this was way before Cinnamon.

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#64

Post by shittyadmin »

folex wrote: post #35
rossdavidh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, it seems like there is a potential way for a non-dev user to help out with open source, here. Basically, if a person volunteers to be an intermediary, reading the feedback and distilling it down to the relevant content (stripping out the unproductive negativity), that could be useful. It would also be emotionally easier to read harsh feedback, when it's not about _your_ work, just the work of a product you use. M…

While the idea is good and kind, it's not as easy as it seems. That's called a support line, and it requires good understanding of the project by non-dev support. That requires to educate someone about your project, and maintain their knowledge to be up to date. That's not an easy task even in commercial projects with a team of several people, and ability to delegate, and requires a non-trivial skill of leadership. I…

They don't necessarily need full knowledge of the product or any such thing, they just need to be able to provide a sort of filter, remove anything uselessly abusive or congratulatory without value, open defects for obvious bugs with reproduction instructions and get users to dig in and provide useful details when asking questions.

Those questions can then be answered directly by them or forwarded off to a dev who will have more detail and be able to get answers faster without the drudge of dealing with the rest of it.

Personally while working at a small company and doing both support and development work, I found it helpful to simply tell customers we'd address issues "with the development team" even when that meant I was going to work on it. Drawing that line in the sand between support and development roles compartmentalize those activities and reduces the immediacy of demand from users.

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#65

Post by bregma »

jcastro wrote: post #28
bregma wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked as a front line developer at a major Linux distro known for making some unpopular decisions. I came to the position knowing full well how 10% of all people out there are loudmouth asscracks . People without experience or inside knowledge who think they know better than those with, and expect to have only their own personal demands met at the expense of everyone else probably because they are getting somethin…

Heya bregma, good to see you! We had a Code of Conduct we could enforce on at least official properties to make sure people behave, though I wasn't able to find one for Mint. It doesn't stop if completely, but at least it's nice to be able to do your job without too much flaming. Reddit or blogs might be nuts, but at least the work mailing lists and bug trackers were relatively ok.

jcastro!

The flaming is the required price for not spending all your time in an echo chamber and for leaving your comfort zone.

And gosh, if you really want flaming, just mention a Code of Conduct. Even a CLA doesn't bring the worst of the dreck out like a CoC does.

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#66

Post by MrTonyD »

ohiovr wrote: post #41

Linux Mint is my main desktop operating system now after abandoning Windows and MacOS. I tried Debian, Ubuntu, Open Suse, but settled on Mint because I was familiar with Ubuntu and Mint feels traditional and polished. Every day I see sad examples of eternal September's march to the written abyss. I had a dream of writing a significant open source project but the reality of entitled user disruption, lack of clear econ…

I ran my own company for a few years just to make money to stop working so I could contribute to open source. By the time I finally made enough to not have to worry about money anymore, I had spent enough years working with open source to realize that big companies get great benefits (I was in meetings with HP, IBM, and Oracle VPs where open source was being supported to transfer responsibility and costs away from those companies.) At the same time, it is Software Developers and associated staffs which lose income. There is also less profit to invest in high quality documentation, training, support, and research (ever notice how most open source companies didn't actually develop the technology - they are just monetizing it through support or consulting?)

So I had the chance to live my dream - supporting our community through open source - but realized that it was ultimately the wrong dream for our society.

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#67

Post by regularfry »

MisterOctober wrote: post #40
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #24

Linux Mint seems to take a fairly regular beating from the Linux community at large, and I'm not sure why. It became fashionable after their ISO downloads were briefly compromised in 2016, and a popular LWN post became the script for people to reiterate every time Mint is mentioned in any capacity.[0] I think it's a terrible shame. For all the stuff I wish it did better, it does so much right that I still overwhelmin…

Totally - Mint was my bridge from OSX to Linux. Great stuff. My impression is that the "cool kids" like to dis Mint because it's popular and easy to use. I found that its ease of use allowed me to get comfortable with the Linux ecosystem at a relaxed pace and not throw my hands up in frustration.

I've actually gone the other way: started out on Debian, went through Ubuntu, and now I'm on Mint because it's least surprising of the lot of them (while being familiar enough that I don't need to relearn the world).

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#68

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

leaf_house wrote: post #59
tannhaeuser wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cambrian explosion? The main distros (Debian/Ubuntu, RH/Centos, Arch, Mint, Gentoo, Suse, Slackware) haven't changed in like ten years or more, the only relatively recent additions being the Devuan branch of Debian, and Alpine. Or have I overlooked something?

Elementary OS, Void Linux, Deepin, Antergos and Tails are a few notable ones off the top of my head. Void has been around for a minute but has become a lot more popular recently.

Void started in 2008

Re: Linux Mint's Sobering Update: A Glimpse into the Personal Struggles Devs Face

#69

Post by regularfry »

arusahni wrote: post #25

This touches on something I've seen in (some, not all) large open source communities: the language used on a daily basis. The default tone is one devoid of empathy or understanding. > This update is shit. or > [new build gets published, person's pet bug doesn't get addressed] > The devs are lazy. At what point did this sort of tone get normalized? I initially chalked it down to non-native English speakers using verbi…

It's human nature. Literally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error
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