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Cake day: June 17th, 2023

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  • Instead, it’s about the irretrievable, sunken costs associated with a loss of incompatible software and hardware that the person would no longer be able to use after switching to Linux.

    … When windows has made its latest release incompatible with most existing hardware out there because of some arbitrary requirements. I have not seen any major hardware compatibility issues with Linux in quite a few years now. It is not common at all for some hardware to not work. In less then about a year Windows in going to make a huge amount of existing hardware unusable for supported versions of windows. That alone will help with Linuxs market share.

    Most arguments in this article are overblown out very outdated. Software compatibility is a issue, but much less then it used to be. Big companies like Adobe and Microsoft which refuse to support Linux are also starting to alienate their user base making the cost of switching more and more apprising all the while the linux friendly alternatives are growing in popularity. And as I said above hardware is not a big issue these days and about to be a big issue for Windows systems.

    It does touch berfily on the main point sa to why linux os not very popular ATM:

    Most people don’t even know what Linux is because they’ve never seen it pre-installed on a laptop in a store. But I digress.

    That is the problem, defaults. Most people don’t care or want to change their OS and most people have hardware and workloads that are easily compatible to Linux. It is really only a minority of people that require things that Windows supports better - sadly those are also the types of people more willing to break from the default OS.

    The year of the Linux desktop won’t come until we, the Linux community, find a way to balance the cost of switching with the future benefits of daily driving Linux from the perspective of an average user. Until then, Linux will remain more like a niche thing, made by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

    No it wont. The normal user will only switch when they are forced to by their current system stopping working or new hardware comes with Linux by default. The average user is your aunt how uses their computer to log into facebook or look up recipes online. A professional that requires adobe suite is not an average user and only makes up a tiny fraction of the overall userbase. It would be nice to support their workloads, but even if adobe was fully supported on Linux that would still only be a fraction more users that would be willing to move. For the average user it is the defaults that their system comes with that makes the biggest difference.




  • From what I can tell xbps-src are just the source packages to the main repos in Void. That is not what AUR is. We have access to the main repo sources in Arch just like Void. The main thing about AUR is anyone can contribute without any gated approvals. That is the big difference between the main source repos of either distro and AUR. Unless I have misunderstood what xbps is.

    but looking at templates they can actually understand its kinda simple script and get the idea of how it works

    Same exact idea with PKGBUILDs. No benefit to Void here. The way Void does things will not change people looking at or understanding the packages they install. You have the same optitunities on both systems for looking at the source of packages. So that argument for Void is void :)

    Also void has runit so this mean u have to get more simple programs to run system like seatd dbus and etc.

    Not really a good argument either. Systemd and runit are different but that doesn’t make runit better in terms of learning anything. If you want to learn how most Linux systems boot and operate you need to learn systemd as that is what the vast majority of distros use. Learning runit instead only means you are learning a niche way of booting a tiny fraction of systems.

    Neither of these arguments are a very strong case for Void over arch.


  • XBPS-SRC does not look like an alternative to AUR at all. It looks like Voids alternative to https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages - where Arch maintains all its packages. Nor is comparing the number of packages in AUR to Void main repos a good idea - Arch has its own main repos that are a better equivalent. The Void templates do not look dissimilar form what a PKGBUILD file is either and you can do the same things with writing your own PKGBUILD or pulling them from repos if you really want to. I don’t see how void is any better then Arch in anything you have described here. IMO it just looks like it does more of the same things with a bit difference in syntax/commands you run. Nothing you have said here is really a solid argument for using Void or Arch at all.

    The AUR is not even that great. I think most people seem to get confused between what is in the AUR and the main packages since they just use tools like yay that install from both. But most people only use a couple of packages from the AUR - it is the package selection in the main repos which is what is so nice about Arch. The AUR is just nice for more niche things that have not made it into the main repos yet.

    I hope u don’t use AUR blindly and just do yay -S something without looking what pkgbuild is doing, it might be dangerous not knowing what program can do and what script that is downloading it too right?

    Same goes for Void? Most people wont read the source of third party packages they install. No matter what distro they are on. AUR tooling does try to help with this but most people ignore it. Same will go for Void. It is not a distro problem - just a humans are lazy problem. Plus even if people did read them there is only a small subset of people that actually understand them enough to spot obviously malicious packages - though that can spot hidden malicious packages are vastly smaller.


  • 252 of that 592 used memory is buffers/cache, not application memory. That is used by the kernel for kernel buffers and the filesystem cache - IE files read by something at some point. The kernel keeps them in memory in case they are needed again to speed up file reads. You can effectively ignore these vales as they will always grow to fill your ram and will be evicted when programs require memory and there is not enough free.

    These tools are not lieing to you, just telling you something other then what you are reading into them. Tracking and reporting on what is using memory is a complex topic and here used is just what is physically allocate. It doesn’t mean much over all as it always tends to be full of your system has been running for a decent amount of time. Available is typically the more useful one to look at as it is an estimate about how much the kernel can reclaim now if an application request it without needing to swap things out.




  • Restrictive tech never works when you apply it from the start. You need to capture the market first before you can start to apply that. And that is the road Bamboo labs looks to be heading down. It is the classic playbook:

    1. have some true disruptive innovation in some product that people will actually want to use your products for ✅
    2. mass market your product and get loads of people singing parse about how innovate it is ✅
    3. slowly start to lock down your product, typically behind the guise of safety and security ✅
    4. start to squeeze your customers for as much money as you can with DRM or subscriptions You wont succeed if you skip straight to step 4. But Bamboo have been slowly working their way up to it. It might take a few more years but I can see them eventually wanting DRM filament.


  • nous@programming.devtoLinux@lemmy.mlHelping choosing the right linux
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    9 days ago

    None of that describes why a beginner would not want to use a immutable distro. It only describes why it is not a good idea if you want to learn how traditional linux distros work. Not all beginners want to learn or care about how linux works under the hood and immutable distros can be a good fit for them. They might not be right for OP, but you have not describe any reason why any beginner should avoid them.


  • nous@programming.devtoLinux@lemmy.mlHelping choosing the right linux
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    10 days ago

    I saw some people using Arch to learn the inside out of Linux, but I’m afraid It could be to challenging.

    It will be challenging but IMO give it a shot if you think it is something you might want to do. No harm in trying really. If you mess it up or find it too hard or whatever you can always install something else afterwards. It is not like you are stuck with your first choice forever. The only thing you will lose is a bit of time and will gain a better understanding of things even if you cannot make it fully work.

    I don’t agree that arch is not a beginner distro - it is a DIY distro that requires a lot of reading and willingness to learn and understand things. The arch wiki is an excellent resource for anyone (on any distro IMO) and well worth reading. If you are OK with that work then it makes a fine distro for anyone, beginner or not. It is not a distro for many people - again does not matter if they are a beginner or not. It is for people with a particular mindset. One that you might change over time or as you grow and learn more overall.

    No harm either if you decide it is not for you. Play around with a few distros and try to find which one works best for you. There is really no one best distro. Just a lot of different things that appeal to different people and the only real way to find out which you like is to try them out.