• 1 Post
  • 25 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 16th, 2023

help-circle



  • Not a new question. When I first got into Linux every one was asking “How can we get everyone to dump Windows and use Linux instead?” I long ago got tired of hearing about THIS year being the year of the Linux Desktop.

    The answer is the same in both cases. Make it default, because most people don’t really care so long whatever is default does what they need it to do. Add in the network effect GitHub has and things would have to get incredibly bad before everyone would switch.

    The reason everyone uses Windows? Because “everyone” uses Windows. Why does everyone use GitHub? Because “everyone” uses GitHub. Both have become the default. That would have to change.


  • Whoops, hit send without meaning to.

    Since then I have been using Linux as a primary OS for most of the systems that I use on a daily basis. When ever I am using something else I constantly find my self missing the flexibility that Linux based OSs offer me.

    And, yes, the hardware situation has gotten considerably better since then, as long as your not running bleeding edge hardware.


  • Back in 2003 my sister needed a computer of her own to do schoolwork on. We couldn’t afford a new computer and the only other system we had in the house other then the laptop I had just bought was still running Windows 98 on a failing hard drive and the Windows install disk we had was borked.

    I replaced the hard drive, started looking for options and found Ubuntu. And it made sense to me. Once I wrapped my head around the idea of the console, everything made sense in a way that Windows and DOS before that didn’t. And I had the freedom to modify anything I didn’t like, a freedom you don’t really have in Windows or Mac OS.

    And it was fast! This ancient computer (AMD Athlon, 256 MB Ram, Ubuntu) was running circles around my new laptop (Pentium 4, 1 GB Ram, Windows XP).

    I wound up switching my laptop from XP to Ubuntu and ran smack into why some people complain about linux being hard to use. Some of my brand new hardware just didn’t work in linux. WiFi, no go ever (proprietary firmware), audio, ditto. I liked Ubuntu well enough that I decided to work around the nonfunctional hardware with usb WiFi and a audio expansion card until the next update to Ubuntu when the built in audio just started working.













  • Only if your home server remains unfederated. Even then other users of the server will be able to see everything. And will be more likely to remember, like miss Busy Body.

    As for this being experimental software. Yes? So? So is the internet. It has really only been under strain for 20 years. (It older then that, I know. I grew up using dialup to BBSs. Then USENET. Then AOL.) We are still making this shit up as we go along. But it’s best not to forget human nature.

    As for your last statement, yea…… I’m going to just let that one be…



  • Yes.

    You must have either grown up post-internet or in one of the bigger cities. I assure you, in small towns like where I grew up, (particularly before the internet) old miss Busy Body down the street would never let ANYONE forget every embarrassing moment anyone ever had. The more scandalous or embarrassing the moment, the more likely it was to be retold. And retold. And retold. Till EVERYONE knew.

    The only thing that has changed is the detail of the retelling. The tales still seem to get bigger and more scandalous with each retelling.