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Ask HN: What website, from your early days on the net, do you miss?

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Re: Ask HN: What website, from your early days on the net, do you miss?

#421

Post by j45 »

asveikau wrote: post #408
j45 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a way OSS did become the future.. Linux powering Android.. Bsd powering macos and ios. Ubuntu 20.04 also looks to be an extremely usable desktop that just works.

> Linux powering Android.. With a lot of closed components on every device. > Bsd powering macos and ios. There is BSD code in XNU just like there was BSD code in NeXTstep in the 80s but the link and resemblance is pretty tenuous. And it would be a huge stretch to call Darwin an open source project. There were efforts to build free distros out of it, long abandoned. And that is ignoring the vast amounts of closed com…

There definitely are closed components. They're built on a foundation of a linux/bsd, no?

I'm speaking to the lineage of what linux has been able to impact.

It's not likely that closed components could have existed without a foundation of linux/bsd.

Re: Ask HN: What website, from your early days on the net, do you miss?

#423

Post by j45 »

badsectoracula wrote: post #395
j45 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a way OSS did become the future.. Linux powering Android.. Bsd powering macos and ios. Ubuntu 20.04 also looks to be an extremely usable desktop that just works.

Ubuntu works great, i just installed it in a VM and it told me i can use "Ubuntu Software" to install new applications - i opened that and it was completely empty for a few seconds until images started to appear. Then i went to games which was empty and nothing would appear. I closed it and started it again and now games would show up, so i decided to install "WolfeDoom" which sounded interesting. While it was downlo…

I agree, I just upgraded fro Ubuntu 18 to 19 to 20. I noticed it took some time to get going too, and suspect there are background tasks that complete after the base OS install.

It reminds me of Early Mac OS X in someways, around the leopard, lion, mountain lion times. Just seems to work.

Re: Ask HN: What website, from your early days on the net, do you miss?

#424

Post by recursive »

EamonnMR wrote: post #215
ken wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wunderground. It used to be fast and simple even on a 14.4K modem. Now it's slow even on broadband.

That was our go to radar site. With dark sky off Android, what's good now?

Windy?

Re: Ask HN: What website, from your early days on the net, do you miss?

#425

Post by parenthesis »

There was a site called something like mydeardiary.com which allowed anonymous users to keep a diary in public.

It's not the site I miss as such, but one particular diarist. His style of writing and unfolding life had me hooked. A while later when I wanted to reread and see if he had continued his diary, the site was gone.

Thankfully, there are still some `old-school' websites around which I love. For example, this site dedicated to t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶s̶t̶ my favourite TV show of all time: http://www.wwwentworth.co.uk/ .

Re: Ask HN: What website, from your early days on the net, do you miss?

#428

Post by asveikau »

j45 wrote: post #421
asveikau wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Linux powering Android.. With a lot of closed components on every device. > Bsd powering macos and ios. There is BSD code in XNU just like there was BSD code in NeXTstep in the 80s but the link and resemblance is pretty tenuous. And it would be a huge stretch to call Darwin an open source project. There were efforts to build free distros out of it, long abandoned. And that is ignoring the vast amounts of closed com…

There definitely are closed components. They're built on a foundation of a linux/bsd, no? I'm speaking to the lineage of what linux has been able to impact. It's not likely that closed components could have existed without a foundation of linux/bsd.

I don't think you get that I'm citing specifically the culture of free software activism. A device that is hardwired to only load Linux kernels crytopgraphically signed by corporate entities doesn't fit the bill, nor is it great to have a bunch of proprietary stuff on top.

> It's not likely that closed components could have existed without a foundation of linux/bsd.

This is false and I think pretty naive.

On the Apple side, I'll cite that NeXT's equivalent of Cocoa used to run on Windows NT in the 1990s. They didn't need Mach/BSD or any form of Unix to run AppKit. I will also note that today many Apple features depend heavily on the Mach kernel interfaces and less upon the BSD layer.

On the Android side, note that many people are saying Fuschia will replace Linux in that environment.

Re: Ask HN: What website, from your early days on the net, do you miss?

#430

Post by asveikau »

dehrmann wrote: post #275
asveikau wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I miss the free software activism bent of old slashdot. There was so much optimism at Linux and others being the way of the future, and beating Microsoft at the desktop. I feel like the Unix enthusiast's shift to the Mac kind of killed some of that. If people think a desktop ui is a "solved problem" (by Apple), there end up fewer people interested in those kind of projects. Now it's pretty common for a free software…

What killed the "is this the year of desktop Linux" question was the smartphone. The Desktop/Laptop segment peaked in 2011.

> The Desktop/Laptop segment peaked in 2011.

Where is the data on that? I just googled around, I don't know if this site is reputable but it would indicate mobile didn't overtake PCs until 2016 and even now the gap is not huge:

https://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mob...

I know I've read that PC sales went down pretty severely around the 2011 date you cite, however, it could be that sales of new PCs are down much more than actual usage because PCs need to be replaced less frequently.

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