91–100 of 122 posts
Rest is accidental, yet most effort is being spent on that. That's why even though we have more FOSS code than ever, users have least amount of freedom and agency.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some do come with Linux preinstalled, but there is a lot of mess in this regard. "Windows tax" was one of such things, the Windows bundling went so hard[0] that it was more expensive to buy a computer without Windows than with[1]. Absolute nonsense, that more or less stopped now. But of course we are well past the Windows platform establishing itself, so now the network effect is a larger contributor I'd say. [0] htt…
We all know about the Windows tax and Microsoft making Windows XP free for Netbooks. OEMs making custom distros didn't help. If anything that was the precursor of the Android distros mess that we got afterwards. They also did the same with CP/M, MS-DOS and Windows since forever, including UNIX clones, why wouldn't they do otherwise with GNU/Linux. As former owner of an Asus Netbook 1215B bought with Linux pre-install…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But there are customers who are looking for tractor wheels and flywheels. Maybe not you or people you know, but there's definitely large industries for both. Just like there's a market for "vehicle to get to work". Same thing exists in software. Linux caters to all the uses, from low power embedded systems to huge high performance computing systems and everything in between.
I'm talking about the wheels that are analogous to the software needed for a decent consumer desktop computer. How many window managers are there? How many different package managers? Ways to prepare code for said package managers? Scripting shells? File systems? Hell, how many distros are there based on Debian and/or Ubuntu? If the goal is "free the world from proprietary software", then the talent spent on scratchi…
So if there's no money in something, then the only people who will show up to work on it are going to want to scratch their own itches because it's a hobby and fun/interesting to them.
I think project bluefin has a similarish philosophy of being a "cloud first os", would definitely recommend checking it out: https://projectbluefin.io/ In all honesty though, there's a tonne of easy to recommend distros which don't need set up if you are a "normie" just wanting to get online: - Elementary - Mint - Ubuntu I think the real "secret sauce" for ChomeOS' success is basically big coorporate backing and bein…
I recently (two weeks ago) decided to finally switch from Windows to plain Ubuntu as a daily desktop. I'm well experienced with it from managing servers and have used it occasionally at a desktop in the past. I've had - and continue to have, a ton of minor and a few large problems. First, wifi. Apparently there's often problems with Intel killer 6e laptop cards, which required me to enter loads of console commands th…
I've been using linux on desktop for about 12 years and will always pick a laptop that's known to have good compatibility otherwise the endless hardware issues are a big timesuck.
Some distros are better than others for hardware support but I think it'd be disingenious to make out like any solve the problem.
If you have a laptop with good support, or even better, a linux specific one, it really is an experience that can work out of the box.
Maybe that's a big part the appeal of being buy-in-a-shoppable. Somebody has figured out for you what works, and you don't have to be your own guinea pig.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hardware problems are a frequently understated barrier to switching, particularly for laptop users. Long time Linux users are generally selecting their machines with Linux compatibility in mind and so don’t see much of this, but the corpus of potential switchers haven’t, and it creates a lot of friction. It’s difficult to convince people to replace their perfectly good laptop with something else just for the sake of…
Also, it's pretty common to install linux to revive old laptops that might have outdated hardware.
If I try out linux and it breaks my laptop, I'm mad at linux.
If windows stops supporting my laptop, or updates make it unusable, and linux makes it usable, I love linux.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does ”looks painfully dated” mean? I hope that doesn’t mean they avoiding bad ideas like hidden scrollbars or menus. I think mint+cinnamon is fantastic, my only gripe is that packages get old after a release has been out a year or two. edit: specifics please.
As someone who appreciates Cinnamon’s approach, it does have a number of rough edges that make it feel less smooth and polished than it could be, compared to even e.g. Windows 7 or OS X 10.9. The practical impact is minimal, but for someone coming from outside of the Linux sphere I could see it leaving a less than stellar impression.
I've been running Mint for ... longer than I care to remember, many years, and it's been flawless for me. I see windows users around me raging when it decides to just freeze, or has weird twitchy behavior, and I just keep on going.
And no, I don't spend hours upon hours tweaking and troubleshooting until it's "just right"; Mint convinced me because it was 99% "just right" out of the box.
Compared to when I used W10 and earlier, it's been sheer joy. It just stays out of the way and lets me do what I need to do.
Uhh…doesn’t a basic Debian install already do this? If you can’t be bothered to install basic af distro, then what is a ChromeOS clome going to do?
The Chrome OS is running trusted boot and immutable partition, and completely closed host system, with no user-installable apt [0]. This means it's impossible to completely break the system - nothing that user does will escape browser sandbox. And, for defense-in-depth, even if browser sandbox got compromised, there is no sudo nor ~/.bashrc nor any other executable per-user configs, so malicious software will disappear after reboot. And if you compromise kernel and modify disk directly, there is verified boot...
And this is not just theoretical benefits, it's stops practical attacks. Are you sure that "bash | curl" command you typed was safe? Are you sure that "pip install" or "npm install" you did didn't actually install malware on your PC?
It is possible to build systems like this based on open-source Linux, but this will be quite a lot of work, and may even require separated trusted builder machine. Definitely out of reach of non-technical user.
[0] https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design-docs/...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We all know about the Windows tax and Microsoft making Windows XP free for Netbooks. OEMs making custom distros didn't help. If anything that was the precursor of the Android distros mess that we got afterwards. They also did the same with CP/M, MS-DOS and Windows since forever, including UNIX clones, why wouldn't they do otherwise with GNU/Linux. As former owner of an Asus Netbook 1215B bought with Linux pre-install…
OEMs were smaller than Microsoft, that was the problem I think. Valve seems to have success with Linux, which is maybe because of their niche, and size. Smaller players just don't get to be trendsetters.
Valve has failed to convince studios already targeting POSIX like environments like Android NDK and Orbis OS (PlayStation), to port their games to GNU/Linux.
Had to switch translating Windows games, as plan B kind of solution.
It remains to be seen for how long Microsoft will tolerate Proton, or just like it happened with netbooks, will drive other handheld OEMs to use Windows and thus in a decade from now people will foundly remember Steam Deck.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm talking about the wheels that are analogous to the software needed for a decent consumer desktop computer. How many window managers are there? How many different package managers? Ways to prepare code for said package managers? Scripting shells? File systems? Hell, how many distros are there based on Debian and/or Ubuntu? If the goal is "free the world from proprietary software", then the talent spent on scratchi…
But there's no money in making a consumer Linux OS. The market has shown this time and again. ChromeOS is effectively a loss leader, getting consumers and students into the Google ecosystem. MacOS is what you get if you want Apple hardware. That's about it for consumer oriented desktop/laptop *nix operating systems today. So if there's no money in something, then the only people who will show up to work on it are goi…
Android shouldn't be a loss leader at this point, though maybe it is in certain companies, and it's not exactly what most people think of when they think GNU/Linux.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But there's no money in making a consumer Linux OS. The market has shown this time and again. ChromeOS is effectively a loss leader, getting consumers and students into the Google ecosystem. MacOS is what you get if you want Apple hardware. That's about it for consumer oriented desktop/laptop *nix operating systems today. So if there's no money in something, then the only people who will show up to work on it are goi…
Do we know the money stats on the Steam Deck? Android shouldn't be a loss leader at this point, though maybe it is in certain companies, and it's not exactly what most people think of when they think GNU/Linux.
Valve failed to convince any major number of studios to bother about GNU/Linux, even when it would be relatively easy to port their games from Android NDK.