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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: November 10th, 2023

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  • I can’t comment on the regular package upgrades without more info, if it is like OS base packages or like end user apps. In any case there has being problems with major versions with changes and stuff but if it is not a rolling release distro that is very rare.

    In any case I don’t agree thad service packs are the same as OS version upgrades, and if it was recently win10/11 had some very bad updates that broke people workflows and features.

    I don’t know if there is any LTS distro with Wayland by default. I don’t use LTS distro nor Wayland (nothing against it, I just didn’t have a need for it so far so my lazy ass will not update). But Wayland rollout has being a disaster in any case. That is completely valid. The only thing I will say is that I don’t think that there was any distro that changed to Wayland as a normal update, was always during a version change and as such, of course, doing an upgrade with this major change probably broke a lot of people workflows. The Nvidia situation in the Wayland matter also didn’t help at all.


  • I only say that reinstalling is not solving a problem in the context of troubleshooting and finding a fix. But yes, is not a good solution because it is a pain. I did so much reinstalling in my windows years that one of the best things I did was to learn to create a separated partition to use for data because it make reinstalling so much easier (it was back in the days of winME and it was an event to do a reinstall, we would usually go to a friend’s house with the HD or the whole machine just to be able to backup everything).

    About the software it is like I mentioned (maybe in other comment) with hardware compatibility. If it is a windows first software, usually Linux support is done in “best effort”, so always lags behind. This is specially true to closed source software as the community can’t even help. In any case, one sad reality is that programmers usually are terrible at building and packaging software for release, and that is not a Linux only problem. The famous dll hell on older windows were due to terrible packaging. That is why docker is so popular, so people don’t have to bother with packaging.

    For FLOSS software what I usually see is in software not on the distro repos and it not being compatible with the distro because the devs don’t build for it. With closed source/binary-only what I see the most is broken dependencies because they build it wrong, targeting the OS libraries instead of bundling everything with the package.


  • I wouldn’t know if this is still a thing. You are right about the integration problem of snaps/flatpak, it is specifically bad on Ubuntu because Ubuntu goes out of their way to shove snaps on you and hide the fact. Case in point Firefox, if you want a non snap version you have to jump through a lot of hoops, or at least was like this when a last installed Ubuntu for my wife laptop, it was the 22.04 I think.

    In any case that is Ubuntu specific, but a shame none of the least because like you said, Ubuntu and derivatives are the more popular beginner friendly distros. but if I recall correctly some derivatives do remove snap so you don’t have to deal with it and its problems.


  • I think part of that perception is a general confusion of OS releases and distros, specially if comparing with windows.

    I think that is only the case of the 10+ years of a windows install because it is the same windows version. Windows until I think “recently” didn’t even have OS upgrade, I know that now people can upgrade from win10 to win11 (and maybe that was also the case for win8) but even that is because MS wants to force a new version on people and there is a lot of complaints of the upgrade breaking the OS .

    On Linux a lot of distros do try to upgrade to a new version and it a very complicated problem. Some distros support this better than others.

    But if you are saying that you have like a win7 install rock solid for 10 years, the equivalent is a Linux distro with LTS support centOS, and these distros are rock solid and different than windows it will not get slow over time.


  • Linux has problems but he is not wrong that a lot of it is not being used to the OS. Finding solutions on the Internet is like a popularity context, of course there is much more of it for windows but even on Linux there is much more for big distros line Ubuntu than other smaller ones.

    Now reinstalling windows is not a solution or a good argument, it is saying the problem cannot be fixed. When I used windows that was also my go to solution and very feel things I solved by googling, but I guess in part because I was not as tech savvy as I am now. But I tell you, when I started with Linux I could find solution for all problems that I have that had solutions, now a lot have changed so you do get that some things are outdated but it is just a matter of paying attention if the solution is old or new (side not rant, sites that do not put date on the articles are the worst).

    Oh yeah, I naver had to reinstall a Linux machine, maybe I lucked out and didn’t royally fucked anything, but I could always solve problems with the OS without a reinstall. I guess because more easily you can find and know where things changed, like what config files you changed and you can always make a copy. The works case is like booting a live USB and rolling back the changes if the OS does not boot anymore.


  • Your second example is a newish problem and Ubuntu specific. I had never had a problem with drag-and-drop and I migrated from Ubuntu before the snap thing.

    You will always find an example of something that works “better” in one OS than other. Linux is not trying to be a windows drop-in replacement, some thing are gonna behave differently. Linux have some problems for an average user but a lot is just different UX design and others, especially hardware compatibility is because companies don’t care for it to work on Linux so the OS is always playing catch up.






  • I disagree, in my opinion it is the opposite, IP and copyright laws of today do more harm than good, they stiffness innovation and creativity. The reason I think is at least two fold, one it incentivizes companies to stop innovating once they get a leadership in the market, since no one can use the innovation they can "camp out"on it and just pluck competition when they are at infancy, using their size and dominant position they can just buy any starting company that tries to innovate further. There is many examples of that, like kodak killing its own development in digital camera so to not jeopardize their camera film business. Same with electric cars, there was companies in the 70s that started doing it, they were just bought and the development interrupted, and because they have the IP on said innovations they can just not do it since no one else can either.

    The second is that I argue that if a innovation is so easily replicated only by seen the end result or cursory explanation it really is like impeding people to do basic stuff, you see that a lot in software patents and video game mechanics. And last not forget that scientific advancements don´t happen in a vacuum, they build on top of previous innovations, and when just the author can build on top of its innovation it really slows it down. You can see it in how research and scientific achievements are done since the enlightenment, one research does something and share with the community and all over the worlds other researchers tries to build on top of it, otherwise everyone would be starting from scratch and would take so much more time. On the topic of researchers, must of the innovations and scientific advancements are done buy researchers that do not see any benefit of IP laws, be it in universities or companies, their IP are owned by the companies and universities, and universities are the more important ones because a lot of basic research are not immediately profitable, it is a slow climb of steps, each new paper, each new small improvements until it gets to a point that it can be applied.

    And lastly I just wanna point out that Linux (and other FLOSS OSs) have being the leader in innovation on the operation system topic, and in fact Linux is the one pushing Microsoft to do more than just stagnating.


  • People like to make stuff for themselves, to do things, to share, and feel useful. I believe it is the default state of people, you see that in families and close friends. You see people simply doing stuff for themselves and sharing the results. You can build a pool and invite over your friends and such. It is nice when you do something for yourself but that other people also enjoy.

    So I think the primary reason is that people like to do things to benefit themselves, things that they want the result or that they enjoy doing the process, and then why not share, even better if other people enjoy the result. It is like cooking for your family or friends


  • But that is not the point the other comment was making. It said that there is no incentive to create something and innovate if anyone can just copy it, and the whole FLOSS movement is a prove that is not the case. Same thing with the argument against UBI that would remove the insentive for people to work.

    You can have other justification for IP, but that was the one the commenter gave and it is empirically false.


  • I can see that. I came to the thread thinking that this album is great but the downside is that it got so big and influential that it overshadowed the first two albums, which is a shame because they are very different than Fat of the Land but still so good. Experience and Music for the Jilted Generation deserve more attention. Hackers is such a formative movie for me and a big part of it is it’s soundtrack and prodigy is a big part of it.

    For me it would be “ruined” in quotes, I don’t blame them for changing their style, musicians change and want to do something different, just sad that there is no more old prodigy.

    But I have to make a disclaimer, I didn’t listen to anything after The Fat of the Land, so my knowledge is limited. (The reason is because I got introduced to prodigy at the time of the first 3 albums but didn’t follow up on them, but that is normal for me, never follow up on bands)


  • Did I said that? I am just pointing out about the companies origin because I don’t understand how this misinformation keep spreading still and with so many resources about it. I guess it is true that “A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting On Its Shoes”.

    But in any case I will answer your loaded question. No I don’t think his companies would be where they are today, because Elon has one thing that he was good at, and it is hyping, marketing, creating a narrative, a lore, and creating a fan base. An example is this lore that he created about his companies origins, it was always known but he kept it from the public discourse for many years and created his persona of nerdy genius that everything he touches turns to gold. And in a way that is true, because it was his performance and hype that keep his companies invested whilst many other would have investments puled off, even with constant mised deadlines, with his wild claims that “X will be a reality in N months” that never come to reality, this would tank the trust, public perception and capital of maybe any other company but for him, the personality cult he so careful cultivated kept people invested, kept the mantra “trust Elon”. And that was what kept his companies, especially Tesla in the green.

    And I think part of this success is his image of kinda awkward nerd genius, which makes it easy for people to trust him and keep listening to him even after his promises failing to materialize, I guess because Elon is “Not like others CEO”, “he is smart, he know what he is doing”, “he is an engineer guy, not a business CEO, so he is not lying through his teeth, there is a reason” and so forth.

    And he lost his magic, his ability to keep this image was lost some point before he bought Twitter but I guess that does not matter anymore, because this amount of money just perpetuates itself at some point and now he also has a new source of fan base in the political right that is not based on the old image of the nerdy genius and instead on the old and tried conservative grift of inflammatory and tribalistic discourse.






  • A stop button for the bus stop.

    Where I live the bus does not stop if no one flags it from the bus stop. The problem is that sometimes it is hard to see which bus is coming and you have to always be on alert. A button that maybe turn on a light that show the incoming bus that passagens wants to get in. For bus stop with multiple bus lines it should show which line needs to stop.

    Similarly a info panel with the buses that stops in that stop, when the next one is due and maybe even a map of the buses route. I know that with smartphones this is not such kife change but still useful I think.