Graf Zahl derails another thread by making up an excuse to troll Linux users, episode #875,482,348,234

[Edward850]

No shit it's the bootloader, and it's already there, it's already installed. It doesn't need to ask me shit. Just do the job and stop bothering me. It doesn't need to ask me anything if it already owns the system, and yet I can't even run a security pass without having to watch the upgrade for half an hour.

 

And as I stated before, grub ain't the only thing that does that. I think I've even had that happen for font stuff? I'm not even sure, I just have to skip through a lot of nonsense sometimes.

Edited October 17, 2021 by Edward850

[Redneckerz]

There is a reason why such things aren't automated. Its a decision originating way back in history, where automation of important things can and will lead to issues.

 

What you call nonsense has a function. Linux in that sense respects the user to have them decide what to do, operating on that same historic principle.

 

If you don't like that, then go for Minix where every error is auto corrected by the OS itself by principle. You will lose your fave apps since its a research OS by heart, but atleast you won't have to deal with nonsense in Linux anymore you have to deal with nonsense in Windows.

[ducon]

With windows, you have to watch the upgrade during two hours and you can’t do anything. Windows does not even tell what he’s doing exactly and asks you no questions. Instead, it boots and reboots thrice, downloads things (what? I don’t know), installs things (what? I don’t know), upgrades things (same) and asks me if I want edge (no, I already answered no, don’t you remember?) A bootloader is more important than a browser. No bootloader, no boot. A crippled bootloader, no boot. A messed configuration file, no boot. A deleted bootloader (thank you Microsoft), no boot.

"Whatever you do for me but without me, you do against me."

Edited October 17, 2021 by ducon

[Edward850]

And yet clearly just letting it do what it was going to do was fine anyway. If it's never failed, I don't need it to ask me again the 500th time.

 

Besides, I explicitly want it to just do the task without asking questions. If it can't do that, then it actually isn't doing what asked it to do in the first place.

 

Also Windows doesn't take 2 hours to update unless you're running it on a dying microsd card. As I stated before, 10 to 11 took me 5 minutes, that wasn't an exaggeration.

(Well okay maybe slightly, but it sure felt like 5 minutes. I hit start, complied some code, came back and it was sitting in the login screen. And my main PC ain't no slouch at compiling code.)

Edited October 17, 2021 by Edward850

[Gez]

1 hour ago, ducon said:

It’s funny that the grudge here against Linux is not against Doom.

How many ports (*boom, *zdoom, *dge, eternity…)? How many ways to store the data (WAD, DEH, BEX, PK3…)? How many editors? How many communities (Doomworld vs ZDoom vs NewDoom…)? The Doom community is very similar to the Linux community. Against Linux, we see a truckload of haters. Against Doom, no one even if the arguments against Linux should be applied to Doom if they were coherent. The Doom community is the same messy but alive and creative community as the Linux community.

But Doom is a game, not an operating system. (No, toys like this do not count.) People don't need to use Doom in order to do things unrelated to Doom. And even then anyway, there's no obstacle to make something that is sure to work on all Doom ports -- vanilla compatibility with no use of rendering hacks.

 

People who use Windows? Unless they're Microsoft developers, they use it to do things unrelated to Windows. Such as browse the web, look at emails, type letters, enter data in a spreadsheet, or write a source port to play Doom (not to play Windows).

Edited October 17, 2021 by Gez

[ducon]

7 minutes ago, Edward850 said:

And yet clearly just letting it do what it was going to do was fine anyway. If it's never failed, I don't need it to ask me again the 500th time.

 

I’m no grub developer and if the developer thinks that a question is needed, I’ll trust him (or her).

 

7 minutes ago, Edward850 said:

Besides, I explicitly want it to just do the task without asking questions. If it can't do that, then it actually isn't doing what asked it to do in the first place.

 

For example, using Firefox without being asked for the hundredth time if I want to use Edge instead? Which question is important if you want a machine that runs?

 

7 minutes ago, Edward850 said:

Also Windows doesn't take 2 hours to update unless you're running it on a dying microsd card. As I stated before, 10 to 11 took me 5 minutes, that wasn't an exaggeration.

(Well okay maybe slightly, but it sure felt like 5 minutes. I hit start, complied some code, came back and it was sitting in the login screen. And my main PC ain't no slouch at compiling code.)

 

Of course, I exaggerated. But upgraded with three or more reboots, it’s not rare.

[ducon]

3 minutes ago, Gez said:

People who use Windows? Unless they're Microsoft developers, they use it to do things unrelated to Windows. Such as browse the web, look at emails, type letters, enter data in a spreadsheet, or write a source port to play Doom (not to play Windows).

 

Indeed: Windows is closed-source.

And I don’t play Linux either, I just use it as Windows users.

Edited October 17, 2021 by ducon

[Gez]

Just now, ducon said:

Indeed: Windows is closed-source.

So every single Linux user is volunteered to become a full-time Linux developer? It's not an operating system, it's a press gang.

[ducon]

2 minutes ago, Gez said:

So every single Linux user is volunteered to become a full-time Linux developer? It's not an operating system, it's a press gang.

 

Of course not, it’s not because it’s possible that it’s necessary. It’s basic logic. If you want to play with Linux, you can, just like with Doom: you can use it (ie play WADs) or play it (ie make WADs).

With Windows, it’s not possible.

Edited October 17, 2021 by ducon

[Dragonfly]

11 minutes ago, ducon said:

For example, using Firefox without being asked for the hundredth time if I want to use Edge instead? Which question is important if you want a machine that runs?

 

 

You get asked once and only once.

 

 

Source: Written from Chrome on a Windows machine where I was not asked to use edge when I booted it.

Edited October 17, 2021 by Dragonfly

[ducon]

6 minutes ago, Dragonfly said:

You get asked once and only once.

 

I didn’t.

I even didn’t get asked to.

[dpJudas]

5 hours ago, Redneckerz said:

Because my dad is running Linux for several years and makes similar complaints as yours but for Windows. Why should an OS restart every time for the tiniest update, for instance?

You need to factor in the context of my reply. I'm being sarcastic in it because my list of issues was an example of personal Linux experiences where the OS failed me and the reply was that somehow I was not an average user. Meanwhile, the HRESULT errors and whatever other issues they blather about for Windows is supposedly happens all the time to "average users".

 

I mean, just scroll up. You don't have to look far for a Linux user claiming Windows 11 deletes user files. Meanwhile both Edward850 and me upgraded our computers to Windows 11 without losing a single file. Linux users can't have it both ways. If they claim Windows craps itself all the time, they have to acknowledge that Linux does that too! Because it really does! Just because it didn't happen to you doesn't mean it doesn't happen to others! My hardware isn't some unicorn hardware! It's pretty normal consumer hardware, albeit on the high end.

[Graf Zahl]

Just for the record: I have had more technical issues with my Mac at work than I ever had with my private Windows PC.

 

That story that Windows is a stability nightmare seems to be a fairy tale all those Linux users tell each other when sitting around the camp fire to boost their egos. :P

 

[ducon]

1 hour ago, dpJudas said:

I mean, just scroll up. You don't have to look far for a Linux user claiming Windows 11 deletes user files.

 

Not Windows 11, Windows 10.

[LexiMax]

9 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

The devil's in the detail here. At my workplace nearly all Linux work happens either in VMs or remotely via command shell on a server. There's few people who run it on 'bare metal' as their system's driver, and those few do it because they don't want to use Macs but need a functioning POSIX environment. So, if these people have the ability to do the same stuff from a Windows machine with its far more robust GUI environment and better software ability, they'd do it in a heartbeat. That'd be one Linux machine less every time it happens.

 

Literally what happened to me.

 

I used Linux during COVID because it was fit for purpose and I didn't have the room to set up my work iMac in my old apartment.  I switched back to Windows when I switched jobs because the job required using software that wasn't available on Linux.  Now, every time I've ever had to dip into my web development or Linux port bag, I've been able to do it largely from WSL, only booting into a VM when I needed to test graphics, which was rare.  With graphical WSL, that one remaining niche is gone.

 

That's a serious problem.

[Woolie Wool]

4 hours ago, leodoom85 said:

Since you guys are deviating from the thread over an annoying OS war...

 

Having Windows 11 on 64-bit CPUs is good and all but, I won't update to 11 yet because it has been a messy release. If only they took the time to polish some details, I'd update it right away. I simply don't trust messy updates, especially if it's an OS.

Early adopters are chumps, let them beta test it and wait.

 

9 hours ago, ducon said:

Define "just work".

For example, for 100% of the people, it means that an upgrade should not remove files in the user folder. For the rest, it’s up to the user to decide what he means by "just work".

I think it's pretty self-explanatory. Most people expect a computer to work like an appliance: a washing machine doesn't expect you to know anything about how washing machines work, a microwave doesn't expect you to understand anything about how microwaves work, even cars haven't required their users to know anything about internal combustion engines since the 1980s other than "put gas in tank, take to dealer when check engine light goes on". Linux still comes with the mentality that you must learn and understand how PCs and Unix-based operating systems work at least to some degree, or at best you're locked out of much of the OS' functionality and at worst it simply won't work at all, which was perhaps a good assumption in the 1970s and 1980s when Unix was the best OS going, but is completely antiquated in TYOOL 2021 where most Windows boxes (including mine, which is a baroque monstrosity with five expansion cards, two hard drives, an SSD, a floptical drive, and a Blu-Ray drive that would likely cause nightmares running bare-metal Linux) work fine for years without any active maintenance or configuration on the user's part because they maintain and configure themselves. With Linux, even the operating systems that do try to maintain and configure themselves often fuck it up because they're a Frankenstein's monster of different, disparate pieces of software from different sources, which is why my one full-time Linux system, my laptop, uses Arch so I know exactly what is on it and how it is set up, because I trust Linux less to not blow itself up than the Microsoft product. Yes, Windows 9x was a house of cards built on a glorified 8-bit home micro OS that was just waiting to melt down at any opportunity, but 9x has been dead for 20 years and the rest of computing has moved on.

 

And the worst part is that the Linux community thinks it's a good thing that only computer obsessives like me can maintain a Linux system consistently without degrading any of its functionality, because in their mind computers must be these delicate, fragile, fussy little things that require the user to constantly take their temperature and babysit them so they don't hurt themselves and pat them on the ass to burp them after they eat, whose secrets are kept by the wise and august sysadmins, whom the mere lusers must run to for help when Baby Computer has a boo-boo. Meanwhile Windows can administer itself much better than most humans can, eliminating the need to have somebody with sysadmin skills at all. Worse, every time Linux takes a step towards being self-administering like the commercial operating systems (e.g. systemd), the graybeards pitch a fit because their arcane computer wizardry loses value if the computer just works without the user having to intervene all the time.

Edited October 17, 2021 by Woolie Wool

[ducon]

1 hour ago, Woolie Wool said:

I think it's pretty self-explanatory. Most people expect a computer to work like an appliance: a washing machine doesn't expect you to know anything about how washing machines work, a microwave doesn't expect you to understand anything about how microwaves work, even cars haven't required their users to know anything about internal combustion engines since the 1980s other than "put gas in tank, take to dealer when check engine light goes on". Linux still comes with the mentality that you must learn and understand how PCs and Unix-based operating systems work at least to some degree, or at best you're locked out of much of the OS' functionality and at worst it simply won't work at all, which was perhaps a good assumption in the 1970s and 1980s when Unix was the best OS going, but is completely antiquated in TYOOL 2021 where most Windows boxes (including mine, which is a baroque monstrosity with five expansion cards, two hard drives, an SSD, a floptical drive, and a Blu-Ray drive that would likely cause nightmares running bare-metal Linux) work fine for years without any active maintenance or configuration on the user's part because they maintain and configure themselves. With Linux, even the operating systems that do try to maintain and configure themselves often fuck it up because they're a Frankenstein's monster of different, disparate pieces of software from different sources, which is why my one full-time Linux system, my laptop, uses Arch so I know exactly what is on it and how it is set up, because I trust Linux less to not blow itself up than the Microsoft product. Yes, Windows 9x was a house of cards built on a glorified 8-bit home micro OS that was just waiting to melt down at any opportunity, but 9x has been dead for 20 years and the rest of computing has moved on.

 

You forgot that if I want to repair my washing machine, I can open it and change a piece.

If I want to repair my car, oh wait, I can’t now because they are actually closed-source computers with wheels. I’m fucked. I can just change the wheels, check the levels and add some fuel. For example, my car has a mp3 radio. Great! I put the USB key and woo, let’s rock ’n’ roll. But wait, why does the machine plays Metal Militia before Hit the lights? Darn. I can’t fix it. I don’t even know where I can complain. If you want to fix something, you can’t. If you want to report a bug, you can’t. It’s worse than Windows.

If I don’t want to repair them, I send them to the fixer.

You are NOT forced to geek with Linux, but you are forbidden to with Windows (or at least, it’s hard to). As I already wrote, it’s not because it’s possible that it’s mandatory. Check your modals. Most of Ubuntu users are not geeks. For example, the French gendarmes (they are cops but work in the army) use Ubuntu at work.

 

Quote

And the worst part is that the Linux community thinks it's a good thing that only computer obsessives like me can maintain a Linux system consistently without degrading any of its functionality, because in their mind computers must be these delicate, fragile, fussy little things that require the user to constantly take their temperature and babysit them so they don't hurt themselves and pat them on the ass to burp them after they eat, whose secrets are kept by the wise and august sysadmins, whom the mere lusers must run to for help when Baby Computer has a boo-boo. Meanwhile Windows can administer itself much better than most humans can, eliminating the need to have somebody with sysadmin skills at all. Worse, every time Linux takes a step towards being self-administering like the commercial operating systems (e.g. systemd), the graybeards pitch a fit because their arcane computer wizardry loses value if the computer just works without the user having to intervene all the time.

 

I don’t have sysadmin skills (maybe a real sysadmin would faint if he sees it) and I run Linux since 20 years now.

My machine runs Debian since nearly 20 years (I began with Mandrake 6.0), upgraded often from Debian Potato, to Debian Sid now. Yes, it’s the same OS even none of the original pieces are in it (it used to be a Pentium, then a Duron, now an AMD).

Of course Windows administers itself better than a human: it decides alone when to reboot, without my agreement, it decides to erase my bootloader, without my agreement, it decides itself to hide personal files, without some users’ agreement.

Edited October 17, 2021 by ducon

[wallabra]

16 hours ago, dpJudas said:

LOL, yes it is on "my end" that Linux crapped itself on several monitors.

 

Well, update your kernel, or your distro, or get another distro! If several monitors don't work, chances are it's not a monitor issue.

 

12 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

Define "people on Linux".

The devil's in the detail here. At my workplace nearly all Linux work happens either in VMs or remotely via command shell on a server. There's few people who run it on 'bare metal' as their system's driver, and those few do it because they don't want to use Macs but need a functioning POSIX environment.

So, if these people have the ability to do the same stuff from a Windows machine with its far more robust GUI environment and better software ability, they'd do it in a heartbeat. That'd be one Linux machine less every time it happens. Now imagine this reaches a critical mass where companies like Canonical lose their funding. Suddenly the biggest commercial drivers behind Linux desktop development would be gone.

Do you really think the hobbyists with their unprofessional attitude towards system development will be able to fill the gap? I don't. But then Linux will just become a server OS. These machines will be remotely maintained via command shell and do not have any desktop needs.

 

Define "unprofessional". I think some of them do a pretty good job. (Will I ever stop praising Pipewire?)

 

And, why would anyone want to use Macs? Apple devices are overpriced for what they can do, and Apple is really really evil, way more than Microsoft (the latter whom I don't like, but then again, not their fault that capitalism).

 

And, I don't think Windows has a more robust GUI environment or a better software ability. Being able to run binaries without worrying about distros and stuff, is one of the few pros it has over Linux, depending on whether you see it as one.

 

And we would much rather not have commercial drivers. Why do you think Ubuntu is such a quirky environment, with its whimsical design and troublesome point release and its silly Snap platform? Canonical isn't really very interested in the interests of the Linux community, only their own.

 

 

And I guess that's just how the people at your work use Linux. You shouldn't judge Linux by how people use it whilst exploited employed in capitalist enterprise. Free software is, in a way, a knee jerk reaction against corporate capitalism, against Microsoft and IBM and the proliferation of closed-source and proprietary software and DRM and other user-rights-infringing business practices.

 

That's why people use Linux, but at the same time that's why it's such a relative niche – a lot of people, at least in the West, are illuded by capitalism, and not a lot really care about it at all and just want a system that 'just works'. And even if you ignore the real world aspect of it, free software is still very political in the sense of the what-are-technically-politics involved in maintaining a community that can have a common direction and grow and sustain itself through mostly voluntary effort (i.e. software licenses). So it's hard to talk about free software without talking about capitalism, or at the very least some sense of lato sensu politics.

Edited October 17, 2021 by Gustavo6046

[Graf Zahl]

7 minutes ago, Gustavo6046 said:

Define "unprofessional". I think some of them do a pretty good job. (Will I ever stop praising Pipewire?)

 

"PipeWire is a server for handling audio and video streams and hardware on Linux.[2][3][4] It was created by Wim Taymans at Red Hat.[5][6] It handles multimedia routing and pipeline processing.[7]"

 

So clearly a professional.

 

"unprodessional" would be people who let their own bias get into the way of how they develop software, the most obvious result being ignorant of users' needs.

You can witness that a lot with hobbyists.

 

 

[wallabra]

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of Red Hat but I admit they tend to do better things than Microsoft or Canonical.

Ah sorry that's a bit beside the point

 

15 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

"unprodessional" [sic] would be people who let their own bias get into the way of how they develop software, the most obvious result being ignorant of users' needs.

You can witness that a lot with hobbyists.

 

Well, being ignorant of users' needs is frowned upon. Most thriving repos on GitHub have issue trackers where people post suggestions and they are usually heard. When they're not (e.g. with issue github:yarnpkg/yarn#1743) it's seen as a bad thing. So I don't know why you're making hobbyist developers out to be ignorant, or unprofessional. Or what professionalism is specifically defined as when talking about developers here, or why "being professional" ^{(blabla capitalist propaganda)} comes into play to begin with.

 

(Imo, writing clean but efficient code, making good design decisions, with sensible architectures, satisfying users' needs; those are generally good things, but that's just skill, idk why youi'd call that professionalism, it's not necessarily related to profession and not everything should be professionally geared)

 

22 hours ago, Edward850 said:

Does it? I ran the Windows 11 update on my laptop just the other day. Clicked install, walked away for 5 minutes, came back and it was already done. Everything was intact and certainly nothing was missing.

 

Meanwhile every time I go to update a Linux desktop or even servers, I have to watch them like a hawk because it'll constantly ask questions such as upgrading the grub config, pausing the entire update each time. Stop asking pointless questions and just fucking upgrade you god damn OS.

What? Windows 11 installed in five minutes? Package manager prompting you after a system upgrade? (It doesn't for me)

 

This sounds like anecdotal bollocks.

 

Funny how it's just the people in Doomworld, or those who are older and have developer roles in the community, who say things like that. Makes you think why nobody else has this epidemic of Linux impracticality. Hmmmm!!

 

EDIT: And also in the UT99.org website and Discord. It's starting to sound like it's just all the boomer shooter boomers.

Edited October 17, 2021 by Gustavo6046

[LexiMax]

@ducon what exactly are you trying to accomplish here?

 

Me personally, I don't particularly care if you have had a trouble-free existence with Linux or not.  I am not trying to proselytize on behalf of Windows, because frankly, all of the operating systems are kind of bad in their own special way so if Linux works for you, that's fantastic, keep using it.

 

But if you're trying to convince other people to use Linux, you need to find another strategy, because what you're doing here is ineffective.  Unless you are a hobbyist who is thoroughly in the Free Software cult, the GNU/Linux Desktop has nothing to offer.  So instead of trying to patiently explain to us why we're all wrong, why not be solutions-oriented?  It's a lot easier to coax people over to your side with a carrot than a stick.

 

37 minutes ago, Gustavo6046 said:

You shouldn't judge Linux by how people use it whilst exploited employed in capitalist enterprise. Free software is, in a way, a knee jerk reaction against corporate capitalism, against Microsoft and IBM and the proliferation of closed-source and proprietary software and DRM and other user-rights-infringing business practices. 

 

I have and will continue to judge it, because the only reason the Free Software maximalists can play house with their hobby is because of the unglamorous work that the capitalists do writing drivers and maintaining core system software that the hobbyists freeload off of don't appreciate.  When the money leaves, the hobbyists are going to be hit the hardest, while the corporate interests are just fine with adapting to the new normal.

 

The hobbyists have the most to lose here, and they need to recognize it instead of playing Baghdad Bob simulator.

Edited October 17, 2021 by AlexMax

[Dragonfly]

3 minutes ago, AlexMax said:

@ducon what exactly are you trying to accomplish here?

if you're trying to convince other people to use Linux, you need to find another strategy

 

Echoing this. This kind of communication is literally the only interaction I have had with Linux users. Never, ever have I seen a Linux user who doesn't have a stick up their ass about everything Windows. I'm sure there are many people I don't realise are Linux users, and if so, they're great. They found what they enjoy and have left it like that, rather than trying to preach and indoctrinate like some weird bloodthirsty cultist.

 

I've given a few Lixux OS'es a go, hated them for different reasons and went back to the OS which just works, Windows, because I don't have nearly enough free time to fudge about with a million settings I care so little for, nor do I enjoy having to install a billion dependencies and/or emulate windows via whatever arcane means, be it wine or otherwise, to use over half of the applications I want to use.

[Graf Zahl]

6 minutes ago, Dragonfly said:

 

Echoing this. This kind of communication is literally the only interaction I have had with Linux users. Never, ever have I seen a Linux user who doesn't have a stick up their ass about everything Windows.

 

How about blzut3? He seems to be a levelheaded individual who just happens to use Linux. Yes, these also exist and are normally easy to discuss with.

But you are right that it is inevitable that one of these FOSS absolutists will come along - with zero clues what professional computer users need and often that harebrained notion that all software should be free, never mind that this won't work because it'd drain the entire industry of its money.

 

 

 

 

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

12 minutes ago, Dragonfly said:

Never, ever have I seen a Linux user who doesn't have a stick up their ass about everything Windows.

Here I am. I use a Win 7 machine nowadays but I used a computer with Ubuntu for the past three years

Spoiler

I'll say that, while I did make comparisons between those OS', and thought that Linux is better, I have changed my thoughts and well, now I think both OS' are great in their own right 

 

[wallabra]

1 hour ago, AlexMax said:

I have and will continue to judge it, because the only reason the Free Software maximalists can play house with their hobby is because of the unglamorous work that the capitalists do writing drivers and maintaining core system software that the hobbyists freeload off of don't appreciate.  When the money leaves, the hobbyists are going to be hit the hardest, while the corporate interests are just fine with adapting to the new normal.

 

The hobbyists have the most to lose here, and they need to recognize it instead of playing Baghdad Bob simulator.

 

I don't know why you say that. Absolutely nothing points to Linux needing companies or commercial backing in order to thrive. It would work perfectly well in a world without Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Red Hat, or even hardware vendor companies as we know them today. This is a world where physical labour and organization is required (e.g. hardware vendors), workers' cooperatives would take their place, if not outright socialism. It's not an utopia. Far from that – there is already a nationwide general strike up there in the United States, and it's pretty close to a socialist revolution already. So it's not an utopia, it's a goal.

 

Why capitalism bad (you might already know this, more likely if you're not from the US, so feel free to skip):

Spoiler

People often parrot capitalist propaganda instead of actually thinking deeply about the morals of our society – "overthinking" it – because it's easier to take in social inertia, although I'd argue social inertia and "being neutral" is implicit support for the statsu quo.

 

The economy is moved by workers; starting a business is only difficult because of capitalism (doing it for the money, not the business) and not because of any actual competency that is somehow unique to business owners, chief corporate officers, stakeholders, or Board of Directors members.

 

The dissonance at the core of the issue with capitalism is that, labour is essential to business, and also essential to the worker's living, but at the same time they're pitted against each other by framing employment as a market, where workers sell labour and companies buy them (instead of this labour being an integral part of the business itself, like a business formed by the workers themselves I.E. a workers' cooperative), because that's the only sensible way you can keep the workers and the business owners separate, which is another effective layer in the class struggles of capitalism.

 

By dismissing this and crediting progress in society to capitalism itself through its businesses (rather than the workers under the hood of said businesses), you fail to acknowledge this disparity between the contribution of both classes to society, and implicitly exonerate corporations. This is relevant here, because computers in our current contemporaneous society play a big role in how capitalism today thrives; Big Tech companies get away with anti-consumer business practices, overruling antitrust disputes, and other bullshitty corporate things, largely because of this socially inertial mentality that is primarily epidemic in the US but also everywhere else in the world, which exonerates capitalism and deems it a "necessary evil" or somehow a constant of a free society (it's neither). The political movement behind free software is more than just hobbyists jerking each other off through Git commits. It's calling out the increasing (non-)role of corporate capitalism in what are quickly turning out to be the most important faculties of our society – the flow of information, software, and the Internet. This is the dawn of the Information Age, and never before have we ever been so dependent in something as virtual as sequences of bytes. And yet, corporations have been quickly to take control of that too. Just like they did with their unfettered, unregulated influence in politics in many a nation state, especially the United States, a long time ago.

 

Those are the big guns at play. I'm not going to hold them back anymore. Lost the patience for that. I still have lots of other points that haven't been addressed, but that is the ultimate essay.

 

Hell, I won't even have to mention society at large. When the Steam Deck comes out and everyone likes it, and when Windows 11 comes out and nobody likes it and it comes preinstalled in everyone's PCs, everyone is going to realize how much of a boon Linux really can be for everyone. People will notice that the Steam Deck performs better on consumer-grade hardware than Windows 11 does on mid-high-end hardware, and that it does not sacrifice practicality like people often make Linux to do. That it will come out much cheaper than your average PC¹ whilst providing a similar, if not often superior, gaming experience. They'll realize what they were missing out on. That shall be the beginning of the end for Microsoft's rule on the operating system market.

 

¹ For computers to come with Windows pre-installed, OEM manufacturers sign a deal with Microsoft; they pay for the computers to come with Windows pre-installed, because most people today associate computers with Windows, and it is almost a pre-requisite for good sales nowadays for the sold machines to have it pre-installed rather than requiring the customer to have some OS install media handy. This, however, means that OEM manufacturers have to pay Microsoft for the copies of Windows that are pre-installed, and this affects their profit margins, which means that by buying PCs with Windows from OEM, people are not only paying a higher price for the same hardware just to have Windows come with it (even if they just want to install a different OS), but are also indirectly sourcing Microsoft profits. This is only such a massive issue as it is because Windows holds the absolute monopoly of the operating system market, and those who don't want to use it are greatly disadvantaged.

 

You see now the unfair background that free software "hobbyists" have? Bashing on them for putting out a slightly less than "professional" OS is like bashing the Soviets for not being able to win the Space Race despite having been a very rural and backwards society a mere half a century prior.

 

^{(And the Soviets did win. Several times. You just kept moving the goalposts till they didn't. You dirty bastards.)}

 

1 hour ago, Graf Zahl said:

never mind that this won't work because it'd drain the entire industry of its money.

 

That's the goal! :)

Edited October 17, 2021 by Gustavo6046

[Dragonfly]

17 minutes ago, Gustavo6046 said:

That's the goal! :)

 

You're showing your age.

[LexiMax]

 

37 minutes ago, Gustavo6046 said:

You see now the unfair background that free software "hobbyists" have? Bashing on them for putting out a slightly less than "professional" OS is like bashing the Soviets for not being able to win the Space Race despite having been a very rural and backwards society a mere half a century prior. 

 

It's fair when hobbyists would rather fork and paint the bikeshed a different color rather than collaborate, cooperate, come to consensus, and squash egos.  You can't accomplish anything substantial....like, say, going into space....without being able to do that.

 

It would be a lot easier for me to root for them against the evil capitalist oppressors if they could actually put up a meaningful fight in the first place.

 

Edited October 17, 2021 by AlexMax

[leodoom85]

What the hell am I looking at now?

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

Speaking of Steam

Is the steam os any good? Haven't tested it but sounds interesting 

[Blzut3]

48 minutes ago, Lol 6 said:

Speaking of Steam

Is the steam os any good? Haven't tested it but sounds interesting 

The previous incarnation of Steam OS may as well not exist.  From what I can tell for all intents and purposes it was dropped faster than a Google product.  We'll have to see if the new Arch based one for Steamdeck gets more development attention.  Not holding my breath that it will ever be a practical OS outside of the specific use case of Steam big picture (i.e. making a console), but of course that is exactly the point of it.  Just not sure what you would expect from trying it out vs just using big picture.