Earlier quoted context omitted.
What are you referring to? Are Debian's default installations going to include the non-free repositories, which aren't officially part of Debian?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33055100
Thanks.
5 Years of Pop _OS
141–150 of 187 posts
Re: 5 Years of Pop _OS
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve run most OSs under the sun. NixOS is a generation ahead.
How does NixOS compare to running Debian Stable? I've never had problems with upgrades breaking things on Debian stable.
Any other package system feels like a house of cards. Nixos feels like you’re compiling your desktop, with full error and type checking. It’s much more like software develop than administration.
Re: 5 Years of Pop _OS
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve run most OSs under the sun. NixOS is a generation ahead.
How does NixOS compare to running Debian Stable? I've never had problems with upgrades breaking things on Debian stable.
I'm running NixOS unstable, with flakes, and while my code is an unstructured mess NixOS gives me a couple of things.
* Bleeding edge packages
* Bleeding edge alternative packages (Try wayland an pipewire without being scared)
* Upgrades that doesn't evaluate changes nothing (except disk space)
* Upgrades that evaluates but doesn't work ("never" happens) are atomic and can be rolled back from (unless you mess with boot, but even then booting NixOS livecd, mounting things up and running the install command will get you back)
* Things that aren't in your config doesn't exist in your system
* Identical systems across machines (with configurable differences)
The difference is huge, but some things are a pain in the ass, so I use "distrobox" too for small one-off things, it manages podman to set up an OS container for me that shares my homedir and such (so I get all my dot files in there too)
* You'll learn to appreciate systemd
* You'll eventually learn a bit of FP
* Once something works, it keeps working.
There are more pros, and I didn't list any cons, but with fistrobox you can hide many warts where your FP skills are lacking.
So to answer your question, upgrades between versions will probably always break for you, but they'll break on build time, so you fix them (mostly deprecated/moved options) and then it's all fine and dandy, rather than your system being broken.
Re: 5 Years of Pop _OS
#144[deleted]
Re: 5 Years of Pop _OS
#145[dead]
Re: 5 Years of Pop _OS
#146I will translate that very surprising comment whom made my choice :
--start of comment--
[quote]does S76 announces they're targetting to recreate their own desktop from scratcch, or they "just modify things" whom are not really good with the gnome desktop of today, keeping the rest (running GTK if Im well)? [/quote]
Official communication(1) says "we're doing to do our own desktop because gnome extensions are too breakable". Indeed, Cosmic-desktop was until there a gnome modified, with extensions, whom can by definition(2) be bugged/breaked/misfunctionnal at each gnome update. This decision could be comprehensible for a company who install it on computers to sell.
But I think we might not forget the fuming writing(3) that Chris Davies published shortly afterwards. As explained, some S76 devs badmouth a bit regarding Gnome devs riding their bad reputation (not diserved at all imho) and of lost-minded nerds flooding the r/gnome subreddit and comments on OMGubuntu. The announce of Cosmic being rewrited in Rust has been then shown as a divorce between S76 and gnome, on the exclusive wrongdoing of that last one. It personnaly a view whom makes me sick, as some people said it here already. Budgie said more or less the same thing announcing last december they will re-write their desktop environnment in ELF(4), accusing the GtK project of being running for the particular interests of Gnome[teams]. It's very hard for me to see that as something else than a true and real bad faith. Few years earlier, Linux Mint and elementary, decided their own desktop environnment in replacement of Gnome, and the three projects has followed a distinct path while keeping a good harmony (and staying based on GTK!)
it's very frustrating to see those quarrels blocking on the path of the linux desktop adoption, because it's really about it : we're not talking here about niche desktops like sway or lxqt, but about what can permit to a huge amount of users to emancipate of microsoft and Apple. If it's still considered as a relevant idea.
1: www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/11/system76-is-building-its-own-desktop-environment
2: fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey-Patch
3: linuxfr.org/users/anonyme/liens/system76-a-case-study-on-how-not-to-collaborate-with-upstream
blogs.gnome.org/christopherdavis/2021/11/10/system76-how-not-to-collaborate/
4: joshuastrobl.com/2021/09/14/building-an-alternative-ecosystem/
--end of comment--
this is the reason why, on my own, I litterally prefer LMDE, with openbsd and haiku to accompany.
Re: 5 Years of Pop _OS
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does it matter? People that care know and people that don't know don't need to care.
Yes it does? If it doesn't matter, why are there two or even 3 options at times for the same software with little detail as to why? And if the packaging difference does matter (as it did for my vlc issue, one solution only worked for the deb), then an explanation for newbies should be given as to the general expectations for each package type. Or should I just "git gud" and go digging through ppa/flathub? mailing lis…
If it did matter there would be detail as to why. It doesn't. One of them was buggy, but again does not matter which one.
> or should I just "git gud"
The opposite. Just blindly click on one. If it works you are done, if not click on a different one.
You are really, really overcomplicating this for no reason.
Re: 5 Years of Pop _OS
#148It sounds like they are taking a big bet on rewriting large components of the OS custom for Pop OS in Rust. I wish them the best but it sounds like a big commitment and I’m holding my breath for them to succeed. I’m curious how System76 sees Pop_OS fitting into their business model which is primarily hardware.
At least the rust gui libraries get some polish. I tried iced and it’s an impressive piece of work but beauty can get some love
Re: 5 Years of Pop _OS
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you look at my comment history, you'll see I'm a bit of a broken record, but my records don't break anymore after switching to NixOS. It was precisely the breakage after every upgrade that got me to try it. With declarative config-based reproduceable deployment that can be rolled-back, the broken OS doesn't need to be a thing anymore.
I’ve run most OSs under the sun. NixOS is a generation ahead.
Yes, though it can be lot better (and never will):
- there are no types in nix
- the debugging capabilities are limited
- there is no "slot" concept nor the edges of dependecy graphs may be tagged
- it's hard to make contributions because they press on you a lot about minor formalities, e.g.they require you to squash commits manually and deliberately don't want to enable one-click squash in Github settings, P/Rs and issues are getting ignored (even critical/security issues), etc.
Re: 5 Years of Pop _OS
#150I'm a Linux idiot, just got sick of Windows, and took the plunge in 2016. (After some ill-fated tinkering in 1996 with Slackware, but we don't speak of that.) I started with Ubuntu and had a pretty good time for a year or two, until a dist-upgrade broke everything. Luckily /home/ was easy to restore from backup. So I was fine for another two years on Ubuntu until another dist-upgrade broke everything again. Sensing a…
I think the problem here is that you cause breakage without ever gaining the knowledge of why. Pop_Os might break on you just the same as other distros might, because it's very likely a manual operation that got you there. "Miraculous" belongs on Windows or OSX, not Linux.
To be perfectly clear, the "miracle" was finding a clear and cogent support page that addressed my issue. I was back in action like ten minutes later.
The technology itself is nothing special. Knowing that it may break, and positioning resources where search engines can find them, and making the resources readable enough to understand which one to try first, is what sets System76 apart here.
When I ran into the same problem on Ubuntu I wasted a week using my other machine to search forums, mailing lists, bug tracker tickets, visit IRC channels (and then leave the machine on to lurk in the channel in case of a reply...), and try any web result I could find that seemed to address my issue. I sunk probably 30 or 40 hours in, and made zero progress, before finally giving up and deciding to install fresh and restore /home/ from backup. I'm sure the resources were out there for someone who knew what to search for, but that's one of the things about being a Linux idiot, I've only been doing this a few years and I've found it incredibly hard to learn the art of divination to resolve "half my apps crash on start" to "package manager problem". There's just no hand-holding for that, you're expected to just know it.
> you cause breakage without ever gaining the knowledge of why.
Exactly.
The acute irony is that I strongly suspect that the Pop_OS support page may have fixed my broken Ubuntu installations too, but I didn't find it while I was searching for Ubuntu issues.