Thank you. That makes sense why some downstream distros designed for specific purposes (e.g. gaming) might include a handful of their own repos for specific software.

How does that work, exactly? I don’t actually know. Are they compiling their own copies of the upstream code changes?

It’s a way cooler picture than the reality, which is probably that they hacked a laptop on a different network that could access the target endpoint.

I dunno, I won’t read it either, because I want to believe in your vision.

linux has this problem of experienced users raining downright useless and often counterproductive advice on noobs.

Not to be rude, but you might want to take your own advice. I see a lot of hyperbole in your two, frankly, rants. “Greybeards” might have ruined your experience, but most people around here just want to help.

Does linux support from manufacturer really matter?

Only they can truly answer for themselves, but from a business standpoint, yes. It might. Being able to get support direct from the people who made/sold the laptop, whether it be in the form of a warranty or tech support, could save you from having down time when you need to be working.

Interesting, but how?

This is just a manifesto and call to action. The “how” comes later, as people gather and put their heads together.

Seems like you have some thoughts about it. Perhaps you can join/share your ideas with them.

I see that, now that you explain it that way. That does seem ethically questionable.

I’ll have to take some time to learn more about the details, so I can make my own informed decision.

I have Bazzite on a laptop for the ease of use and general resistance to breakage, and Spiral Linux in a VM. The latter works flawlessly that way, like it was always meant to be in a VM.

Ah, I see. It doesn’t particularly bother me, but I can appreciate why it might bother somebody else with different values.

Thanks!

That’s interesting. Do you have a link, by chance? I’d love to read more

Agreed. I would recommend it for reproducibility, and it’s mostly stable, but it’s like Arch Linux for people who think Arch is too easy. Plus, the documentation still sucks. The basic packaging tutorial for something new that’s not in the repos is essentially, “Here’s how to make a ‘Hello World’ package… And now that those five steps are complete, you are a NixOS master who can package anything.”

I hope it comes into its own, sincerely, but it’s definitely not for the average user just yet.

Since you’re a Linux old-timer, what’s your beef with Fedora, if you don’t mind sharing?

I do want to add Bazzite’s team seems to have only one person who can sign releases, and they did misplace a key at least once leading to nobody receiving updates until they replaced the key in their installation.

Not to be “that guy,” but I would like some sources on this. As far as I understand it, the signing happens automatically in GitHub via the private keys during the automated build process.

Additionally, they didn’t misplace a key; they didn’t yet have a process in place for pushing a new key to end-users (they had/have a plan to rotate their signing keys from time to time). Details about what happened can be found here. In my year of using Bazzite, I haven’t seen this issue reoccur, so I am writing under the assumption that they’ve indeed fixed the internal process that caused the problem.

Deus Ex Mankind Divided.

Just getting started, but it’s been pretty fun so far. Not really appreciating how much it echoes the current happenings in society, though…

I love Hidden Folks! Hidden Through Time is another that’s basically the same but with color.

I’ve “convinced” ChatGPT that it was both sentient and conscious in the span of about 10min, despite it having explicit checks in place to avoid those kinds of statements. It doesn’t mean I was correct, just that it’s a “dumb” computer that has no choice but to ultimately follow the logic presented in syllogisms.

These things don’'t know what they’re saying; they’re just putting coherent sentences together based on whatever algorithm guides that process. It’s not intelligent in that it is doing something novel, it’s just a decent facsimile to human information processing. It has no mechanism to determine the reasonability or consequences of what it generates.

The only thing that is a genuine problem with Linux as a whole is that a lot of apps and games just aren’t compatible, be they a less popular app who’s users rely on it or a really popular game that refuses to enable Linux compatibility in EAC.

To that I say: then pick a different program or way of doing things. I used to use a Mac over 15 years ago, and part of that experience is not being able to use certain programs that you can use on Windows and finding alternatives. Many companies have multiple versions, nowadays, but that wasn’t always the case, and it’s not uncommon to find programs that only work on one OS.

If your favorite game doesn’t work on Linux, there’s ways to solve that problem (e.g. dual boot, GPU passthrough to a VM), but 80% of games in ProtonDB are currently gold-rated or better without those measures. Many people miss the functionality of certain programs, so people create ones that do similar or even better things (Remmina is so much better than Remote Desktop Connection), or they can utilize web versions.

I get that there are occasions where you just can’t make something work, but I would say that for the majority of users, their “unsolvable needs” stem from credulity where they can’t imagine any other way than using “Program.exe.”

It’s up to us to help new users find those new ways to do things.

Okay. They fed Google’s Notebook AI a book called “The History of Philosophy Encyclopedia” and got the LLM to write a podcast about it where it “thinks” humans are useless.

Congratulations? Like, so what? It’s not like it’s a secret that its output depends on its input and training data. A “kill all humans” output is so common at this point, especially when you have a vested interest in trying to generate content, that it’s banal.

Color me unimpressed.

Old article, btw. This is from Sept 2024. I get that’s what he promised, and while I think he’s a complete asshat, let’s not discount that he and Trump said and will say anything to appear smart, capable, and as if they have a plan.

Time will tell if this actually comes to pass, but I’m not actually going to hold my breath for this one.