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Interesting point for the military: If you build a rocket that contains GPL software, and shoot the rocket towards your enemy, you are obliged to send another rocket containing the source code.

Why would anyone ever need more than 80x25?

So you’re saying that it’s easier to learn C++ than git, because you only need one command (g++ foo.cpp -o foo) instead of many?

My favorite error message of all times:

You don’t exist, go away!

PC stands for Personal Computer, but that doesn’t mean that every personal computer is a PC. Just as VW stands for Volkswagen but not every wagon used by folks is a VW.

Calling any personal computer PC would cause all sorts of confusion, as PCs are able to run specific pieces of software (which were literally marketed as »PC 3,5"«, »PC CD ROM« or something of the like) such as »PC (or MS) DOS«, Windows etc. It would have been pretty annoying if someone sold you a game, telling you that it runs on PCs, leaving it to you to guess which kind of personal computer they meant: Atari ST, Apple II, C64, or IBM PC. All of them are personal computers, but only the PC is a PC.

Btw, all that was set in stone already in the 1980s and 1990, decades before Apple launched the Mac Vs. PC campaign in 2006. If your teacher called an Apple IIe PC, he was wrong about that, even before it was cool.

TBF, most of the time (with a small exception for the period from 2006 to 2020ish) it would have been wrong to call a Mac a PC, as PC (and PC compatible) is the name of a specific platform based on the 8086 and compatible processors with a specific BIOS and a specific IO-interfaces. And Mac’s most of the time are not PC compatible. And I’ve never heard anyone say, that a MacBook is not a laptop.

That’s because the Gnu/Linux-Version of killall is as weak as a stoned penguin. You have to try the real stuff.

killall is your friend. But the UNIX version.

Linux has proven quite well that an OS doesn’t need a registry.

Gnomes dconf would like to have a word with you. It’s really interesting how the Gnome people seem to get rid of every useful feature as it might confuse the user or be complex, but on the other hand add this registry-like anti-feature to make the system just as unmanageable as Windows.

There is no single definition, for what a word is, which is exactly my point. Some linguists even argue that “word” is inherently undefinable and refuse to use it as a category.

One common (but still ambiguous) definition is though, that a word is the smallest unit in a language that can stand on its own and conveys a meaning. By that definition, “Ruf … an” is one word, as “an” is not a word by itself. It might not be too obvious, as “an” can also be a word by itself , just not in this context. Another example, where it’s more obvious, is “innehalten”. “Inne” is not a word, it has no meaning by itself, it cannot be used on its own, so in the sentence “halte kurz inne”, “halte inne” is one word. Another example would be “Stelle etwas dar”, where “dar” is obviously not a word by itself.

Fun fact: Verb literally means word in Latin, so saying they are the part of the same verb, but not the same word is kind of an oximoron.

That is totally a non-trivial problem, which requires a lot more conception before it can be solved. Even for English, this is not well defined: Does “don’t” consist of one or two words? Should “www.google.com” be split into three parts? Etc.

And don’t let me start with other languages: In French, “qu’est-ce que” is one word (what). In the German sentence “Ruf mich an.”, the “Ruf an” is one word (call) while mich is another word (me). In Chinese, you usually don’t even have spaces between words.

If I got that feature request in a ticket, I’d send it back to conception. If you asked me this question in an interview, I’d ask if you wanted a programmer, a requirements analysis, or a linguist and why you invite people for a job interview if you don’t even know what role you are hiring for.

Linux has you covered. Just call

insmod -v pwr_perpertuum_mobile.o

The -v is short for --violate and allows you to violate the laws of thermodynamics.

To be fair, he is not completely wrong. Gnome is an idiotic DE for idiotic users. I use Gnome, btw.

What about xbill? Why is noone mentioning it?

I‘m having (minor) trouble with updating my machine about every year or two. That’s exactly the same experience I had with Ubuntu, when installing a major upgrade every 1-2 years. The only difference is, that with Ubuntu I had 20 broken packages and no clue what to do. Now I have trouble with one or two packages and the solution can be found right on the homepage of my Distro.

The only thing that breaks my workflow with every update is Gnome. But there’s a simple solution for that: Don’t use Gnome.

I use Arch by the way.