621–630 of 764 posts
Had a lot of trouble with Gatekeeper, signing, notarization and stapling it in the past. I'm so sick of it.
I like my Linux. It has it glitches but it seems to like me also.
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Have you really used a desktop Linux desktop recently? Sure it might have some problems but Fedora for example is in no way "a distant third in usability". I haven't used MacOS for a couple of years but I can say for certain that Linux is not that far behind Windows and sometimes even ahead. I think the main problem is lack of application support but specifically for developers most applications are already there.
I use Fedora on a Thinkpad on a daily basis and it sucks compared to macOS IMHO.
There’s a rather strong counter to this is: I, and the vast majority of computer users, don’t want to manage every nitty-gritty detail of the security and privacy of my computer. I have better things to do. In fact, doing it fully competently is more than a full time job. So farming this out to a third-party is a necessity, for me and many, many others. Of course, it’s not perfect. How much can I trust the third part…
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So you weren't able to come up with the idea of right-clicking without Google?
Right clicking didn't work. The main menu also didn't offer the option. You need to open a burger menu in the top right corner. And then the new folder button is purely an icon and it doesn't show a folder.
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If a kid with a phone but no money wants to know if programming is something they might like to study, and somehow the school also can’t afford a Pi, I’d point the kid at something like https://js.do/
The problem is that's not really how people get started. Hello world is how you get started in a university intro course, not in your parents' basement. What happens there is that you have a pile of photos that are all in one folder and you want to organize them into separate folders by date. A problem you're actually having, not a homework assignment. Which is possible to do automatically, because they all have meta…
I can still remember being 11 years old and meticulously keying in the hello world program on my dad's aging Tandy Model 16, then saying 'cc hello.c' and watching as the compiler chugged through the tiny program for a minute or two. (It #includes stdio.h, so there was more code to go through than it seemed, plus there was a linking step. And not much actually happened, because Unix C compilers are silent if there are no errors.)
When I ran a.out and saw "hello world" appear, I was over the moon. It was like clearing 1-1 in Super Mario Bros. for the first time. Like I had surmounted the first obstacle and was thus ready for all the challenges that lay ahead.
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> I worry for Gen Z because they're tiny-mobile-device native. And the only usable tiny mobile devices are walled gardens. Without the ability to grow up playing with system level software, combined with the software industry's unwillingness to pass on institutional knowledge to younger generations, I fear we are already on a path towards a civilization that loses a lot of the technological capability we currently en…
> Without the ability to grow up playing with system level software, combined with the software industry's unwillingness to pass on institutional knowledge to younger generations, I fear we are already on a path towards a civilization that loses a lot of the technological capability we currently enjoy. Gen Z here. I tried to give manufacturers the finger and try to play with systems level software on modern PC's and…
If the lack of open hardware bothers you, there are several non-x86 architectures that are fully open source. Chief among them is RISC-V[0]; SiFive[1] is taping out RISC-V processors to real hardware, selling dev boards, and stuff like that. These are real, competitive, Linux-capable CPUs, although widespread adoption has not happened yet.
On the more minimalist front, the ZipCPU[2] is simpler (though has less software support), and it's author writes some really great blog posts about HDL[3] (Hardware Description Language -- how these CPUs are defined).
You might also enjoy developing for very small embedded systems. I like AVR CPUs such as the ATMega328P (of Arduino fame) for this purpose. Although not open-source, they have quite good and thorough datasheets. AVRs are very small 8 bit systems, but as a result, you can fit most of the important details in your head at once.
If you want to talk more about these topics, feel free to get it touch with me. You can find my contact info on my profile, and on my website (also listed in my profile).
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You pointed out a core problem here, and a common blindspot with the HN crowd: > continuing to use Apple/Google/Microsoft That is probably 98%+ of devices that most typical people use for everyday computing, across phone, laptop, and desktop. Whether it is an android device, an iPhone, a Dell laptop or a new M1 macbook you are beholden to a corporation that doesn't care about privacy. I would argue that Apple cares a…
> And before "have you tried this *nix distro??" comments appear, they are still too hard to setup and nowhere near as user-friendly for most people on an everyday basis. Uh, no. There are many reasons why people don't use Linux. The easy of setup and use lines are pure nonsense. Many Linux distributions have been easier to setup and use since at least the introduction of Ubuntu, and perhaps earlier. Just pop in the…
I have tried moving over to linux several times throughout the years, but setup was always a huge issue. Installation was easy, but things like trying to get my aging peripherals to work properly, and trying to get font rendering not to look like absolute ass were always a huge hindrance.
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Good thing said hacker culture spent 15 years buying inflated laptops and desktops from them ultimately for convenience to give them the market presence to do this in the first place. Its the same thing with Windows. People will preach all day that they won't make any personal sacrifices to try to avoid feeding literal cancers that are eating the software industry and are shocked when said all consuming voids take aw…
What's worse is the number of other posts with the top comments being vociferous defenses of these companies as if they needed these people to defend them or cared one iota for their welfare. It feels like it's Stockholm Syndrome on a mass scale. I worry for Gen Z because they're tiny-mobile-device native. And the only usable tiny mobile devices are walled gardens. They scream outrage when they're not allowed their t…
I slowly tend to think that some of those commenters, who fiercely defend all and any action taken by Apple to limit the freedom of its users, are paid marketing and PR firms who scan forums to oppose any opinion that is not in line with Apple‘s vision of a closed system.
I'd strongly advocate fellow hackers/technical users to move out of the Mac ecosystem and get yourself a Thinkpad. My Thinkpad X1 Carbon that I got a few months ago runs Fedora as seamless as the Macbook runs MacOS. I haven't had a single hardware compatibility issue to date. I don't even miss the Apple Trackpad since I've gotten used to the Thinkpad Trackpoint which is an order of magnitude better as an input device…
Hey thanks for mentioning this. My current dread is having to switch to a linux laptop because I hate the yak shaving inherent with linux systems and driver issues. However, I won't be getting big sur or any other future osx systems until they fix their api and allow firewalls to actually work with their software. So starting to scope out what options I have and this helps.
Lenovo has started to offer a few Thinkpad models with Fedora pre-installed afaik. I believe you can select the OS on Lenovo's website while placing an order. So you can hit the ground running with Linux.
Alternatively Dell XPS offers Ubuntu out of the box as well. But I prefer Thinkpads since XPS has only USB-C ports like the Macbook, requiring you to carry a dongle around.