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Linux Asceticism

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Re: Linux Asceticism

#41

Post by TZubiri »

sevensor wrote: post #2

It’s funny, I feel quite the opposite. Using windows is a form of asceticism, and Linux is the easy way. Everything just works under Linux, but under Windows, things go wrong for no apparent reason, the system installs updates and reboots without me telling it to, there is massive network traffic that I didn’t initiate, none of my tools work properly, there are ads on the start menu, and software I know I installed i…

Perhaps we have different definitions of ascetism. It's about having less, not more. Less guis, less random traffic, etc..

That said, linux is in a way like processed foods, and windows is organic.

Linux is distilled down to the essential components through chemistry, it's like sugar or table salt, or maltodextrine.

Windows is just a thing that is alive, but not even a single thing, it has a flora that the manufacturer can't even tell you what it is in the ingredient list (can't share source code, they don't have it) they can't put all of the natural bacteria that coats an apple in an ingredient list.

Re: Linux Asceticism

#42

Post by hx8 »

I've occasionally chosen to use Linux in this way. To abstain from certain aspects of the operating system to better learn Linux. Several of my close friends and I will also do things in Linux for the learning more than the outcome, but most of them use their whole toolbox. It's interesting to put a religious connotation, because I was doing this behavior while recovering from a heavily religious childhood.

Re: Linux Asceticism

#43

Post by MaxBarraclough »

DonHopkins wrote: post #21
sph wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. Joy returned when I was done and I ran `blkdiscard` to nuke the entire SSD I installed it in. Excised in one fell swoop.

Bill "2^(Year-1984) MIPS" Joy? https://donhopkins.medium.com/bill-joys-law-2-year-1984-mill...

Navigating from HackerNews to Medium is exactly the kind of downgrade we're talking about. A bloated ad-filled horror-show of openly hostile design.

Firefox tells me it had to download 1.9MB, despite that the only graphic in the article weighs just 60kB.

Thankfully modern browsers have 'reader mode'. There's no such simple solution for Windows.

Re: Linux Asceticism

#44

Post by sevensor »

DonHopkins wrote: post #21
sph wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. Joy returned when I was done and I ran `blkdiscard` to nuke the entire SSD I installed it in. Excised in one fell swoop.

Bill "2^(Year-1984) MIPS" Joy? https://donhopkins.medium.com/bill-joys-law-2-year-1984-mill...

I love the image of Bill Joy as a masked superhero, who returns from out of nowhere and deletes your Windows partition.

Re: Linux Asceticism

#45

Post by TZubiri »

mr_mitm wrote: post #28
sevensor wrote: post #2

It’s funny, I feel quite the opposite. Using windows is a form of asceticism, and Linux is the easy way. Everything just works under Linux, but under Windows, things go wrong for no apparent reason, the system installs updates and reboots without me telling it to, there is massive network traffic that I didn’t initiate, none of my tools work properly, there are ads on the start menu, and software I know I installed i…

You need to be more specific when you say "Linux". I use Debian Unstable and stuff breaks all the time. Which is to be expected, so I'm not complaining, it's on me. My understanding is that Microsoft has shifted QA to the users quite a bit in recent years, not unlike Debian Unstable. And I am part of the QA process I guess.

Debian is for kids, RHEL is for men

Re: Linux Asceticism

#46

Post by jwells89 »

kombine wrote: post #10
sevensor wrote: post #2

It’s funny, I feel quite the opposite. Using windows is a form of asceticism, and Linux is the easy way. Everything just works under Linux, but under Windows, things go wrong for no apparent reason, the system installs updates and reboots without me telling it to, there is massive network traffic that I didn’t initiate, none of my tools work properly, there are ads on the start menu, and software I know I installed i…

I use the latest Fedora KDE on my laptop and I find it to be a better Windows desktop than Windows itself. I cannot even say it is ascetic - everything just works really really well.

KDE is solid but I think is just different enough to throw off less technically oriented would-be switchers. I think a fork of KDE that changes it to be more of a 1:1 match to Windows would be highly beneficial here, especially if this fork has a dropdown menu that can switch which version of Windows it mimics (lots of people miss 7 and XP and would find a zero effort way to get that experience back tempting).

Re: Linux Asceticism

#47

Post by lambdaba »

sevensor wrote: post #2

It’s funny, I feel quite the opposite. Using windows is a form of asceticism, and Linux is the easy way. Everything just works under Linux, but under Windows, things go wrong for no apparent reason, the system installs updates and reboots without me telling it to, there is massive network traffic that I didn’t initiate, none of my tools work properly, there are ads on the start menu, and software I know I installed i…

Reminded me of this Stallman quote "People sometimes ask me if it is a sin in the Church of Emacs to use vi. Using a free version of vi is not a sin; it is a penance". (I use (Neo)Vi(m) BTW)

Re: Linux Asceticism

#48

Post by sevensor »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #43
DonHopkins wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bill "2^(Year-1984) MIPS" Joy? https://donhopkins.medium.com/bill-joys-law-2-year-1984-mill...

Navigating from HackerNews to Medium is exactly the kind of downgrade we're talking about. A bloated ad-filled horror-show of openly hostile design. Firefox tells me it had to download 1.9MB, despite that the only graphic in the article weighs just 60kB. Thankfully modern browsers have 'reader mode'. There's no such simple solution for Windows.

Sure, hate on medium, I’m certainly not here to defend it, but I think you may have missed the joke.

Re: Linux Asceticism

#49

Post by School-Cotton »

yathaid wrote: post #17

As a software engineer, this post resonates with me. But, you can find this attitude pervading the whole linux desktop ecosystem. This post may as well be titled "Why it will never be the year of the Linux Desktop".

I don't really care about "the Linux Desktop" and I don't quite understand why so many people do. I use Linux and it works great for me. If it never makes inroads among my non-technical friends and family, who cares? They are doing fine without it.

I guess this is what survives of the 90s/early-2000s Slashdot mentality where people defend software for ideological reasons and get in Linux vs. Windows fanboy fights, but I think that's anachronistic today. Linux Desktop is never going to take over among average people (increasingly many of whom don't even use desktops at all) and that's fine.

Re: Linux Asceticism

#50

Post by lambdaba »

dallasg3 wrote: post #7
sevensor wrote: post #2

It’s funny, I feel quite the opposite. Using windows is a form of asceticism, and Linux is the easy way. Everything just works under Linux, but under Windows, things go wrong for no apparent reason, the system installs updates and reboots without me telling it to, there is massive network traffic that I didn’t initiate, none of my tools work properly, there are ads on the start menu, and software I know I installed i…

Have you tried any of the BSDs?

Years ago DragonFlyBSD seemed by far the coolest, anybody know how it's doing these days?
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