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Chimera Linux works toward a simplified desktop

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Re: Chimera Linux works toward a simplified desktop

#101

Post by IshKebab »

gjvc wrote: post #78
IshKebab wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just for gaming. Mice are better for everything. > Now I use a vertical mouse (by Logitech). Ugh I tried that when I had RSI. Absolutely awful. The fundamental flaw is that you click sideways which always moves the pointer a little unless you strain to avoid it, which kind of defeats the point. Get a better chair and desk. That solved the RSI for me - no weird ergonomic input devices made any difference.

did you ever try a TrackPoint, with a HARD inverted dome, and mouse buttons under the space bar? Much faster for me than a mouse any day of the week.

You mean the IBM nub? Yeah I have used them. They're even slower than a touchpad. Probably the slowest kind of mouse there is!

Re: Chimera Linux works toward a simplified desktop

#102

Post by nerflad »

LeFantome wrote: post #92
bryanlarsen wrote: post #81

It's the userland that always sends me back to Linux. I've tried BSD a few times, but there are enough gnu flags in my muscle memory for command line utilities that it's painful.

This is an honest question. Do you have any examples? I have always been a GNU user but have been using Chimera Linux. I ran into differences with ‘sed’ and read about a regex difference with “find’. Really curious what flags other people are using.

one sticking point for GNU users can be that BSD utils are more strict about positional order of e.g filename parameter and input options. rm ~/foo -rf || rm -rf ~/foo

I was forced to get used to BSD syntax when I switched to MacOS but now I prefer it...

Re: Chimera Linux works toward a simplified desktop

#103

Post by ThrowawayB7 »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #9
walrus01 wrote: post #7

[flagged]

> Surely, 2025 will be the year of the Linux desktop! I don't know if that joke was more funny in the late nineties when Linux was basically nowhere (I was already using Desktop Linux back then though) or if it's more funny today, when Linux powers the entire real world. I mean: Linux powers 500 of the Top 500 supercomputers, billions (if not tens of billions) of devices, rockets (SpaceX uses Linux extensively), serv…

It's the "...on the desktop", i.e. that the general public would have a stated preference for Linux because it served them better than proprietary OSes, putting their makers out of business, that makes it funny. Linus even said "Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect." in a NYT interview back in '03. Much like "640k ought to be enough for anyone." and "There will be a market for only 5 computers in the world." (only in this case Linus is actually on record saying it), it's a testament to the overweening hubris of the early FOSS movement.

The things that you list matter only to a small number of nerds and the general public wouldn't care a bit if they were all replaced by FreeBSD, Fuchsia, or TempleOS tomorrow. Even for the consumer applications, Linux is being primarily chosen just because the hardware manufacturer didn't want to pay money to license another OS to benefit their profit margins as much as anything else.

So, yeah, the joke is still funny and it looks like it will be funny for the next few decades too.

Re: Chimera Linux works toward a simplified desktop

#104

Post by c-c-c-c-c »

replete wrote: post #98

Had a go at booting this in a VM. The ISOs apparently have some issues, meaning you can't just boot in a VM and have a poke around...

It's stance on keeping it's own reimplementations of parts of systemd as a dependency sadly rules it out for me. It would be a great choice for a linux jail on freebsd.

Re: Chimera Linux works toward a simplified desktop

#105

Post by linfocito »

jacobtomlinson wrote: post #90

I assumed this was a post about ChimeraOS, a gaming focused Linux distro, but it seems this is talking about a totally different Linux distribution with the same name. Chimera OS: https://chimeraos.org/ Chimera Linux: https://chimera-linux.org/

From the FAQ (https://chimera-linux.org/docs/faq#what-about-chimeraos)

“The system also has no relation to ChimeraOS, besides the unfortunate name similarity. ChimeraOS used to be called GamerOS and renamed itself to ChimeraOS later; however, at this point Chimera Linux was already in public development with its name in place.”

Re: Chimera Linux works toward a simplified desktop

#106

Post by Defletter »

megous wrote: post #72
Defletter wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for most ordinary use cases. I guarantee you that, if someone downloads a compressed file, they'll find it infinitely easier to right click and select the "Extract here" option than whipping out some tar command. The linux-brain has people convinced that the layman would prefer the latter if only they would listen.

That's some windows-land programming right there. The idea that a file is something clickable, some icon with a title somewhere on the screen. And typing 5 letters is clearly not infinitely harder than right-click and rummaging through 20 item menu to find the right action. The difference is actually infinitesimally small.

I'll hold your hand while I offer this groundbreaking revelation: the vast, vast majority of people are in Windows-land. We're even having issues with the younger generations who do everything on their phone and this don't really have any concept of file systems. Get out of your echo chamber. That means getting off of HN and start looking at how laymen use computers.

Re: Chimera Linux works toward a simplified desktop

#107

Post by LeFantome »

nerflad wrote: post #102
LeFantome wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an honest question. Do you have any examples? I have always been a GNU user but have been using Chimera Linux. I ran into differences with ‘sed’ and read about a regex difference with “find’. Really curious what flags other people are using.

one sticking point for GNU users can be that BSD utils are more strict about positional order of e.g filename parameter and input options. rm ~/foo -rf || rm -rf ~/foo I was forced to get used to BSD syntax when I switched to MacOS but now I prefer it...

Thank you for the answer!

Even as a GNU user, I never would never have thought to put filenames anywhere but the end. I mean, with wildcards, it could be any number of filenames.

You are right though, that is an important difference.

Re: Chimera Linux works toward a simplified desktop

#109

Post by LeFantome »

rollcat wrote: post #66
eth0up wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it seems a stupid question, but it's an honest one: why openbsd rather than freebsd? I tried freebsd when Debian integrated systemd. Being neither savvy or intelligent, I had trouble with the ports system and installations were taking hours for small applications. I gave up. I've always had a nagging desire to try again, but poor health has discouraged me from those kinds of learning curves. I recently left Deb…

> I recently left Debian again and use Void, with Opensuse on a separate drive [...], I gave serious consideration to Chimera before settling on Void [...] Have you tried to write down your goals/expectations? It seems like you're throwing distros at the wall to just see what sticks. I don't care for apt vs xbps or systemd vs openrc. My own goals are simple: - I want a "UNIX workstation", overall decent for software…

You might like Chimera Linux. It also “refuses to accept complex systems”, except it is still Linux and so does not have the limitations of OpenBSD.

Chimera Linux also uses doas. The Turnstile project is a good example of Chimera Linux rolling its own when no suitable alternative is available (to replace Systemd in this case).

Re: Chimera Linux works toward a simplified desktop

#110

Post by rsolva »

IshKebab wrote: post #49
rsolva wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GNOME? It is super simple. I have used Fedora/GNOME on my elderly family members laptops for many years now, and they just get it. Even the ones who came from Windows 10. The hours I spend on support has dropped significantly. Windows is such a hassel, and its desktop design philosophy is just not that great for casual users.

I can't think of a single thing in Gnome that is somehow better than Windows, in terms of usability for beginners.

My elderly family members beg to differ ;)

So far, my experience with people above 60 is that they quickly understand how to find and navigate between the apps they use every day. The ones coming from Windows adapt suprisingly fast, and are very pleased that the fullscreen popups and forced updates are gone. Shortly before I moved them over to Fedora, they started developing a fear of using the computer because they never knew when it would 'lock them out' because the screen was filled with a fullscreen Office365 ad that had no obvious exit button.

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