This is FINALLY Getting Easier... Linux Challenge Part 3

[finest feck fips]

1 hour ago, Sarra said:

I'm getting prepared to switch my laptop over to Kubuntu LTS, which might be a mistake. I probably should use Ubuntu instead, but I'm trying it out on hardware, not just a VM, to prepare for replacing Win 10 Pro on my old Haswell machine.

I ran Kubuntu for many years. It's perfectly fine. The best integrated KDE experience is probably on openSUSE, but Kubuntu is nice and KDE is fine there.

For desktop use, I tend not to prefer LTS releases at all, but if you're new to Linux and you don't mind having outdated desktop software for a couple years, they're fine. Upgrading from them to newer LTS releases is usually easier than doing all the intermediary upgrades, though imo once you know what you're doing there's just no need.
 

2 hours ago, quantum- said:

I can't recall a satisfactory answer to this from Linus, Luke, or anyone who wants more people to switch to Linux. If you are a Windows user, it is far easier to remove the included bloat and malware in Windows than it is to try and run things on Linux. Why should the average Windows user switch if fixes for the problems with their current OS exist and applying those fixes has a much lower barrier to entry than changing their OS?

This is only true if you have extremely low standards for what qualifies as removing the included malware and bloat. Most Windows debloat scripts are hacky and woefully incomplete. Even if you know one that works well, many things you want to do cannot be done from a running Windows instance due to Windows' inability to delete open files, so you need to boot from external media or mount a WIM disk image from Windows installation media as an offline Windows installation, then modify it, save it, and recompress it to custom installation media before reinstalling Windows if you want it to work.

And even if you use the best tools available and you successfully modify your Windows installation offline, Microsoft can (and will) reinstall their bloat and spyware bullshit on update time at their whim and pleasure. Similarly, they change how their stuff works (which is, of course, typically entirely undocumented) all the time, so trying to keep up with them is (1) endless churn and (2) nobody doing it really knows how much telemetry and other bullshit is still left in place after their procedures are over.

 

If you really, really, want to remove Windows' built-in malware and bloat, you end up neutering Windows update, so if you want to keep an up-to-date Windows installation, you need a CI pipeline that performs a debloating treatment on new Windows installation ISOs from Microsoft as they come out, and reinstall regularly. And it'll be a PITA to maintain that CI pipeline because Microsoft changes the configuration (a big, hairy XML file) required for non-interactive Windows installation all the time.

Can you just find some random person's PowerShell script that you don't understand, run it once, and then pretend your system is ‘debloated’? Yes, definitely. Have you actually removed Microsoft's built-in bloat and malware? Absolutely not, lmfao

 

The things you need to do to actually remove as much Windows crapware as possible and keep it off your system are way, way more technical than just installing your average Linux distro. Not to mention that they can permanently break Windows functionality that naively you would think is unrelated.

[Bramimond]

If we are talking about desktop environments already, let's step it up a notch and talk window managers. 

Ever since I switched to i3wm it made me wonder how I could live life without a tiling window manager.

 

All the grievances I had with dragging and positioning windows were gone. 

 

 

 

[finest feck fips]

3 minutes ago, Bramimond said:

If we are talking about desktop environments already, let's step it up a notch and talk window managers. 

Ever since I switched to i3wm it made me wonder how I could live life without a tiling window manager.

 

All the grievances I had with dragging and positioning windows were gone.

It's also not an either/or proposition!

If you try Plasma and you like some KDE applications and you feel like you know your way around and you want to try a new workflow, you can run Plasma with i3 or Sway or Xmonad or whatever.

Imo the auto-tiling extension Pop!_OS includes for GNOME is an awesome way to introduce yourself to automatic tiling if you're a relative Linux newbie who's interested in a very powerful new workflow.

For people who haven't used desktop Linux or don't really know the anatomy of a desktop Linux distro:

• desktop environments consist of various programs that do things like draw your desktop background, draw your panels, let you move windows around, launch applications for you, etc., or function as your various default apps
• every desktop environment has a window manager
• the window manager is the program that draws borders around your windows, gives you minimize/maximize/close and other buttons (if you have them), and handles desktop visual effects like for alt+tab or the minimize windows animation
• some window managers fully automate the placement and sizing of your windows
  • these are called ‘tiling window managers’
  • they often support super-fast, keyboard-driven (even mouseless) workflows
• as an alternative to featureful (or ‘bloated’, depending on your perspective), pre-configured desktop environments, many users like to build up their own little ‘desktop environment’ from a barebones window manager and a handful of other desktop applications
  • some of these configs are based on ‘floating window managers’ (like you're used to from macOS or Windows), like Fluxbox, OpenBox, WindowMaker, or IceWM
  • some of these configs are based on tiling window managers, like i3, Awesome, Xmonad, DWM, Sway, or Qtile
  • these can be kinda nice for gaming, because they tend to be extremely low on resource usage
    • sitting at a blank desktop, your memory usage will likely be well under 100 MiB with this kind of setup and you should see much less than 1% CPU usage

[Sarra]

49 minutes ago, finest feck fips said:

I ran Kubuntu for many years. It's perfectly fine. The best integrated KDE experience is probably on openSUSE, but Kubuntu is nice and KDE is fine there.

I've got a very low end laptop, with a Pentium Silver and no integrated graphics, and 4GB of RAM. It's a total dog in Win 10, but it's on a really old build, since HP stopped supporting it with driver updates before they even stopped selling the dang thing. I think it's on a 2018 build of Windows, so I'd be better served with a lighter desktop environment on it, but I'll give it a shot for now anyway.

 

51 minutes ago, finest feck fips said:

For desktop use, I tend not to prefer LTS releases at all, but if you're new to Linux and you don't mind having outdated desktop software for a couple years, they're fine. Upgrading from them to newer LTS releases is usually easier than doing all the intermediary upgrades, though imo once you know what you're doing there's just no need.

I don't mind either way, as long as everything keeps working. Function is more important than most anything else. I tend to not update my GPU drivers unless I need to. I'm running the newest AMD Radeon drivers since I bought Doom Eternal, and it required the newest drivers hah.

[finest feck fips]

8 minutes ago, Sarra said:

I've got a very low end laptop, with a Pentium Silver and no integrated graphics, and 4GB of RAM. It's a total dog in Win 10, but it's on a really old build, since HP stopped supporting it with driver updates before they even stopped selling the dang thing. I think it's on a 2018 build of Windows, so I'd be better served with a lighter desktop environment on it, but I'll give it a shot for now anyway.

I'm not sure how well the CPU or storage will do, but 4 GB is plenty of RAM for Plasma 5. You could get away with 2 GB. The desktop itself will most likely consume only 400-600 MB.

One of the things KDE applications and the desktop do pretty well is provide a more or less modern experience without consuming resources on the same scale as other full-featured, modern DEs.

 

8 minutes ago, Sarra said:

I don't mind either way, as long as everything keeps working. Function is more important than most anything else. I tend to not update my GPU drivers unless I need to. I'm running the newest AMD Radeon drivers since I bought Doom Eternal, and it required the newest drivers hah.

Sounds like you know what you want! An LTS would serve you well, and at the moment the latest Ubuntu and Kubuntu LTS release is still pretty recent anyway.

LTS releases shield you from behavior/UI changes longer, and they give you more time for bugs and UX papercuts to be resolved before they switch you over to the new stuff. This might be especially nice right now, since KDE is starting the transition to a new toolkit, which typically means a lot of rewrites. The KDE3 to KDE4 transition was brutal, but the KDE4 to KDE5 transition was really very good, and I expect the transition to KDE 6 to go smoothly as well. But even if it doesn't, using Kubuntu LTS will shield you from the worst annoyances of the changes.

[Ultraforce]

6 hours ago, finest feck fips said:

Wasn't the file Linus was archiving in the ZIP a 3.9GiB compressed video? That's not gonna compress pretty much at all. Comparison to 3GB of zeroes or whatever makes no sense. lol

And for real why is anyone using ZIP in 2021?? ZIP has been obsolete since 7zip introduced LZMA compression to the world in 1999! Pretty much every format compresses faster and better than ZIP.

Everyone should be using .tar.zstd (or .7z if if you want an index and encryption and idk what else, I guess) by now.

Edit: meant to add this as an edit of the previous post. Cannot delete this post and edit it into the previous because the forum software doesn't support it lol

I use zip on peazip a good amount of the time just since when giving an archive to a TA and not having any extra information with Windows you can trust no matter what they use zip will work.

[Ultraforce]

6 hours ago, Qub3d said:

A pretty hardcore Linux dev (and founder of SourceHut) weighed in on the LTT series today with two posts: 1 is from the point of view of what a new Linux user should do to help them succeed, the other is what the existing Linux community can do to help Linux succeed on the whole:

 

https://drewdevault.com/2021/12/05/How-new-Linux-users-succeed.html

He did something that I appreciate, which is admit where Linux stands compared to Windows in a fair and honest manner.

 

Unfortunately, Drew immediately turned and fell into the pit that many complainers have -- he stood up and tried to argue that the challenges should have been more "linux-centric" and made use of the command line. Its like everyone is ignoring or forgetting Linus' repeated statements (including at the end of this video):

These challenges are important in the context of getting an average user to switch.

 

That does lead quite nicely into his second post, however...

https://drewdevault.com/2021/12/05/What-desktop-Linux-needs.html

 

I will say that Drew Devault tends to be a bit... fiery in his convictions, so I actually found this to be a good attempt at an olive branch from him: he is taking Linus' arguments in good faith.

He throws down the gauntlet at the end:

 

In theory, that was supposed to be Ubuntu, but that failed because Ubuntu tried to become the "everything" distribution, and ultimately fell to the demands of power users. It may take someone willing to stand up and say, "I understand you want that functionality, but no. I'm going to include less configuration/extensibility/functionality on purpose, so that the "normal" user (not the POWER user) has the first-class experience. Arch is that way, go have fun.

 

 

From watching the LTT videos and reactions I was given a bunch of other clips but for the whole distro thing isn't there this video which suggest that in the perspective of Linus Torvalds at least if Valve is consistent with the maintenance of Steam OS 3 that probably would be how to have an end user Linux Distro, Valve has the money and the resources to do UX work and reasons to want to have it be successful.

 

I never used it but wasn't the biggest issue with the prior Steam OS was the overly focused on gaming and ignored desktop mode as well as Steam Machines not selling very well leading to a lack of interest in working on it?

 

[Sho2048]

On 12/4/2021 at 8:31 PM, RejZoR said:

It's not a workaround. And it's so practical it's absolutely idiotic that Linux just stubbornly refuses to accept or use it. Instead of opening extra app and juggling with image file on drive around, you literally feed it to WHATEVER app via clipboard. Paste it to image editor. Done. Paste it to e-mail. Done. Paste it to Word document. Done. No browsing and chasing for image files that you had to save through bunch of unnecessary hoops. Windows Snipping tool has been around for ages and I haven't touched it ever. I even have capture tool in Firefox just disabled because it's slower and clumsier and I just don't think about it when PRT SCR is just there directly at all times.

No, I am sorry, but the experience of pressing a button and magically something happens in the background and an invisible thing fills with something that only works in select programs is incredibly dumb and hard to explain to any person. I understand lamenting that PRTSCR is not dumping a PNG of the screen on the desktop and stopping at that, but there is a reason why Microsoft added the Snippet tool, and why just about everyone a bit more power user uses softwares to take screenshots and all that. In fact I recently swapped Greenshot for ShareX because I wanted to be able to record my screen, something that is super easy on mac OS with QuickTime (while the shortcuts for screens are obscure, though I think preview.app does list screenshotting as a function at least)

 

EDIT: yea I don't really get the love for Print Screen. Oh you want it in your editor? Guess what, Greenshot lists me all the options, if I just want to share it I'll do it without a thousand steps to get it on imgur, it's a shortcut and a clic. If I want it in an editor, it is too. I want to save it? Same. No magical clipboard. No relying on hidden magic that has no feedback (no feedback is always bad feedback!)

 

Anyway I watched the video waiting to enter Endwalker earlier, and I definitely agree with most of what they said, and that it was quite bs to ask for a digital signed PDF in 15 minutes when it is something that probably requires a longer set up on any operating system lol.

[Sho2048]

10 hours ago, Bramimond said:

To elaborate, for Microsoft new Windows users are something to extract value from. But for Linux users, new Linux users with an attitude of not wanting to put in some effort and learn are support cases waiting to happen. 

 

So I'd very much prefer it if Linux users had all cultivated a state of mind of self-reliance, willing to first troubleshoot their own problems.

 

>fallocate -l 3G three_gigs.img

>time zip three_gigs.zip three_gigs.img 
  adding: three_gigs.img (deflated 100%)

real    0m17,751s
user    0m16,956s
sys    0m0,788s

Created a garbage 3G file in half a second.

Timed how long it takes to zip it. About 20s. Resulting zip file is 3Mb. 

 

Might take longer depending on your files, but not that much longer. 

I'm not sure what Linus did and since the font is so awful, I cannot say for sure, but this looks like a 29gig archive:

 

 

Not sure why would you bench that since you zipped a file with incredibly low entropy and no shit it compresses extremely quick lol

 

A high entropy file will force the program to be a lot slower and more careful. It takes a lot of time, it would on any system. (or some software just bails out of zipping and includes the entire file untouched.)

[finest feck fips]

1 minute ago, Sho2048 said:

or some software just bails out of zipping and includes the entire file untouched.

To be fair, selectively skipping compressed media is a good feature for archive management software. Most filesystems with compression do that kind of thing for their transparent foreground compression, afaik.

 

32 minutes ago, Ultraforce said:

I never used it but wasn't the biggest issue with the prior Steam OS was the overly focused on gaming and ignored desktop mode as well as Steam Machines not selling very well leading to a lack of interest in working on it?

 

I think Linus is basically right here. The real lesson of the ‘yes, do as I say!’ incident is that

1. installing software via the package manager isn't just app installation, it's system administration (which requires expertise, attentiveness, and is always potentially destructive),
2. even though this works so well that 99% of the time there's no need or reason for an end user to notice the difference, doing system administration (which is potentially destructive) ‘just to install an app’ is too surprising of a behavior to users coming from other operating systems, and so
3. for Linux newbies, distros where immutable root filesystems (probably OSTree) and containerized (Flatpak) or bundle-based (AppImage) application distribution provide a clear separation between the base system and end user applications added on by the user are the future.

[Sho2048]

13 minutes ago, finest feck fips said:

To be fair, selectively skipping compressed media is a good feature for archive management software. Most filesystems with compression do that kind of thing for their transparent foreground compression, afaik.

Oh yeah totally. Zipping would be just burning CPU for nothing of worth.

 

Oh just came to my mind, lol to the old guard that is still guarding people from doing root stuff in the GUI. That is some old ass advice. Even all the way back to 7.10 when I started using Ubuntu for the first time, I just booted Nautilus from the root user because who fucking cares lol.

[RollTime]

11 hours ago, GodAtum said:

Linux us so crap, I mean it takes 15 mins to zip a 3GB file? I can do that in Windows in less then a minute!

I would avoid judging operating systems solely on the basis of how long it takes them to zip things.

 

In any case, this is a problem with Dolphin. Dolphin's built-in compression is single-threaded. Doing it through Ark is much faster. I think KDE devs should work on better integrating Ark and Dolphin, as it would solve several problems that have come up in Linus' workflow.

[linkboy]

3 hours ago, finest feck fips said:

To be fair, selectively skipping compressed media is a good feature for archive management software. Most filesystems with compression do that kind of thing for their transparent foreground compression, afaik.

 

I think Linus is basically right here. The real lesson of the ‘yes, do as I say!’ incident is that

1. installing software via the package manager isn't just app installation, it's system administration (which requires expertise, attentiveness, and is always potentially destructive),
2. even though this works so well that 99% of the time there's no need or reason for an end user to notice the difference, doing system administration (which is potentially destructive) ‘just to install an app’ is too surprising of a behavior to users coming from other operating systems, and so
3. for Linux newbies, distros where immutable root filesystems (probably OSTree) and containerized (Flatpak) or bundle-based (AppImage) application distribution provide a clear separation between the base system and end user applications added on by the user are the future.

 

Having worked in the mobile industry and seen first hand what people do to their phones, i thank my lucky stars that Android (and iOS) are immutable.

[maplepants]

14 hours ago, finest feck fips said:

• the Ark and Dolphin integration bug with drag-and-drop is a first-class bug; it would have been fair for Linus to be much more harsh on it. Ark and Dolphin are both major, mainstream KDE applications. Drag-and-drop between applications from the same DE should be flawless, and that bug is unacceptable, even though it seems like a minor nit.
• I really like the default Dolphin/KDE behavior of collecting status information and success reports for long-running jobs in the system tray. But clearly this kind of setup sucks with the standard panel layout when you have a very large, high res monitor. While the jobs are still running, there should be an indicator in Dolphin, just like there's an in-app indicator in Gnome's Nautilus. Maybe when the app finishes copying or whatever, then it can direct you toward the notifications log with an animation, as well.

I like your summary. These points in particular stood out to me as definite bugs/misbehaviour I think is worth fixing. For a GUI desktop drag and drop is absolutely table stakes and should be possible at the bare minimum between all default apps. And while Linus' monitor makes the situation worse, I totally agree that the dolphin window itself should contain the progress bar or it should pop up in the centre of the screen/window you're using.

 

The other major problem I saw in Part 3 was Luke's window management issue. He talked about it in Part 2, but seeing it for real was pretty rough. There's no reason something like this should happen on a modern desktop environment. I hope the mint team are able to figure this one out.

[Arika]

Part 1: overly negative comments about Linux: 12 pages in thread in the first 24 hours

Part 2: overly negative comments about Linux: 10 pages in thread in the first 24 hours

Part 3: mostly positive/neutral comments about Linux: 4 pages in thread in the first 24 hours

[Gimmick21]

The CLI vs GUI- and "how-to-use-github"-war just doesn't need a new thread

 

[RanAwaySuccessfully]

I understand why many Linux users may have reservations about allowing something like Dolphin to run as root, you're running a program that was not meant to run as the system user, and you don't know if that program is going to misbehave or mess up with some random configuration files because it's never been tested under that scenario. Remember, root in Linux has access to literally everything.

 

But I still believe the better approach to that is for Dolphin to have an option to prompt the user if they want to go into "sudo" mode and simply use root under the hood, so the whole GUI is still running under the regular user but behind the scenes it is using root to access and modify system folders and files as requested.

 

Expecting any user that wants to modify system files to just "know the command line" is, well, silly IMO, specially when most programs on Linux install to folders like /opt/ and /usr/ where you'll need that sort of access for tinkering with the programs that you have installed. It's more understandable to have that protection for servers and something like /boot/, but less so understandable when I have games installed under /usr/games/.

 

21 hours ago, finest feck fips said:

The software you might use to do this varies per-desktop environment, and it sounds like Linux Mint's Cinnamon is especially weak here; the two most popular desktop environments (KDE and GNOME) both support the kind of workflow Linus used for this task.

On Cinnamon it's literally: Right-click the file > Open with Fonts > Install

 

Though it sucks that you have to do it one by one for each file. The default font manager is a bit lacking IMO. I think you can install the GNOME Font Manager and that one tends to work better for installing multiple font files at once.

 

Unfortunately during this I learned Cinnamon does not allow you to PrintScreen while you have the right-click menu open. Weird.

[RejZoR]

14 hours ago, Sho2048 said:

No, I am sorry, but the experience of pressing a button and magically something happens in the background and an invisible thing fills with something that only works in select programs is incredibly dumb and hard to explain to any person. I understand lamenting that PRTSCR is not dumping a PNG of the screen on the desktop and stopping at that, but there is a reason why Microsoft added the Snippet tool, and why just about everyone a bit more power user uses softwares to take screenshots and all that. In fact I recently swapped Greenshot for ShareX because I wanted to be able to record my screen, something that is super easy on mac OS with QuickTime (while the shortcuts for screens are obscure, though I think preview.app does list screenshotting as a function at least)

 

EDIT: yea I don't really get the love for Print Screen. Oh you want it in your editor? Guess what, Greenshot lists me all the options, if I just want to share it I'll do it without a thousand steps to get it on imgur, it's a shortcut and a clic. If I want it in an editor, it is too. I want to save it? Same. No magical clipboard. No relying on hidden magic that has no feedback (no feedback is always bad feedback!)

 

Anyway I watched the video waiting to enter Endwalker earlier, and I definitely agree with most of what they said, and that it was quite bs to ask for a digital signed PDF in 15 minutes when it is something that probably requires a longer set up on any operating system lol.

Lol, it's just bunch of unnecessary steps. PRTSCR is straight raw desktop snapshot into ANY program by pasting it with standard Ctrl+V. What's so complicated about that? Especially when I need to draw arrows and add extra text on stuff most of the time to describe bugs and issues or the steps for which you need to use editor anyway.

[mamamia88]

Reading the thread Linus said was condescending.  I'm seeing a bunch of people offering helpful advice or at the very least offering alternative solutions or explanations into why Dolphin doesn't offer the functionality to modify files using sudo. I feel like you gotta go into computers with a "why did the developer decide i need a warning here" kinda of mindset. Usually if you aren't allowed to do something it's for a very good reason. And then someone asks and they need to explain it for the 100th time of course they are sometimes quick to condescending. Like a parent explaining to their child why they can't have a gun for christmas. But, overall if i asked the question and got the answers i received from here https://forum.manjaro.org/t/the-right-way-to-modify-system-files-and-folders-in-kde-since-dolphin-cannot-be-opened-as-root/36902/2 i would be like "wow i asked a question and got way more answers than i hoped" 

[mamamia88]

On 12/4/2021 at 12:10 PM, RejZoR said:

Oh boy, the screenshotting part. I'd like to say a word about that and how absolutely idiotic it is in Linux. Manjaro at least. You know how PRTSCR works in Windows? You hit it and it grabs whole screen and stores it in clipboard as raw image. Or you press Alt+PrtScr and only capture active window, open ANY image editor and use Ctrl+V or paste the image and that's it.

 

Well, none of that shit works in Linux. You need to use tools and my god so many of them are absolutely bugged.

Not sure about that. All I remember is it took me way longer to figure out how to take a screenshot in windows the first time I ever tried it. How the hell am I supposed to know it's called "snipping tool" and you know how horrible windows search is. I just hit super type screenshot and i'm done. It's never really failed me before. Doesn't matter if it's called something stupid like spectacle or snipping tool. If i search screenshot I find it. 

[mamamia88]

On 12/4/2021 at 1:28 PM, DrSparklegasm said:

What's funny is Windows does the same thing, only the file is hidden. If you have hidden files showing, it shows up there but the WHOLE filename is randomized.

 

Also regarding the refresh button... don't those windows update in real time on mac/linux? MacOS does, which is why im not sure why there's a need for a refresh button. I have a feeling Linus is seeing an issue of NTFS file system on windows being garbage, and thinking its also garbage elsewhere, but with btrfs or hfs+ (or apfs) I think those windows update in real time. The issue was the files weren't done being copied or zipped. Anyone else have thoughts on that?

It seems as though the file size was increasing as the file was copying. Once it stopped it should mean it's done. Still should be a status bar somewhere in the ui to make 100% sure before removing drive from system. I think it's a kinda cool design. Not enough to go back to kde it's just too feature rich and customizable i'd never get anything done. 

[mamamia88]

On 12/4/2021 at 2:11 PM, illuanonx said:

There is, but Linus for some reason is good to hide things. I have used Manjaro for +2 years and I do not have Linus skill-set of messing up

Its a shame, because it does not reflect the general use of Linux and is kinda gatekeeping. If Linus want more to use Linux, its not the way to go.

yeah each ui is different and the design choices can throw people off sometimes. I think what kde was trying to do was use the file size going up as kind of a status indicator which you could then compare it to the original size of the file being transferred and then have a general idea when it's done but, if you need confirmation look in the notifications. Not a horrible way to do it.

[mamamia88]

On 12/4/2021 at 3:26 PM, linkboy said:

I definitely get the complaints with Dolphin.

 

I tried to run Linux back in 2019 and tried to go with Kubuntu (I tend to stick with Debian based distros since I that's what I know) and Dolphin was a huge thing I hated about it (Discover is another one).

 

I always hated the transfer window being moved to the notification tray instead of staying in the window.

 

I like that Cinnamon brings up a pop-up window showing the copy progress.

I don't really like pop up windows. I kinda like how nautilus does it and adds like a circle that get's filled up as the transfer progresses in the ui. There's lots of ways to do it. As long as you take the time to learn how the file manager/desktop chose to do it you're golden. Like he started transferring the file and then the file size column just kept getting bigger indicating a transfer is going on. Then the user can get more details by looking in the notification center. How often do you just sit and watch file transfers happen rather than do something else on your computer while it's happening? Separating the file transfer progress from the actual file browser window allows better multitasking. Let your files extract  or copy and go do something else.  I really like how linux has changed the way my mind works. Instead of getting angry when something doesn't work I ask myself "why doesn't this work" and then think about it from the perspective of the person creating it. And if I can't wrap my head around their design philosophy somebody else probably has created a different desktop or app that does it the way I like. No reason to get upset just sudo apt install somethingbetter.

[mamamia88]

On 12/5/2021 at 6:29 AM, GodAtum said:

Linux us so crap, I mean it takes 15 mins to zip a 3GB file? I can do that in Windows in less then a minute!

It takes as long as your hardware can do it in and how well the zipping app was written. I'm sure other file managers like the one on xfce will probably be faster. 

[mamamia88]

22 hours ago, Qub3d said:

A pretty hardcore Linux dev (and founder of SourceHut) weighed in on the LTT series today with two posts: 1 is from the point of view of what a new Linux user should do to help them succeed, the other is what the existing Linux community can do to help Linux succeed on the whole:

 

https://drewdevault.com/2021/12/05/How-new-Linux-users-succeed.html

He did something that I appreciate, which is admit where Linux stands compared to Windows in a fair and honest manner.

 

Unfortunately, Drew immediately turned and fell into the pit that many complainers have -- he stood up and tried to argue that the challenges should have been more "linux-centric" and made use of the command line. Its like everyone is ignoring or forgetting Linus' repeated statements (including at the end of this video):

These challenges are important in the context of getting an average user to switch.

 

That does lead quite nicely into his second post, however...

https://drewdevault.com/2021/12/05/What-desktop-Linux-needs.html

 

I will say that Drew Devault tends to be a bit... fiery in his convictions, so I actually found this to be a good attempt at an olive branch from him: he is taking Linus' arguments in good faith.

He throws down the gauntlet at the end:

 

In theory, that was supposed to be Ubuntu, but that failed because Ubuntu tried to become the "everything" distribution, and ultimately fell to the demands of power users. It may take someone willing to stand up and say, "I understand you want that functionality, but no. I'm going to include less configuration/extensibility/functionality on purpose, so that the "normal" user (not the POWER user) has the first-class experience. Arch is that way, go have fun.

 

 

It's totally possible to design something that could be both. "Simple by default powerful when needed". It's totally possible to take a Unix system and warp it into something end users can't mess up. Look at Mac OS for example. The difference is with linux everybody has their own idea of what simplicity is and what should and shouldn't be default behavior. We're at the point now you can have an os and all your important apps installed in 30 minutes. Something you complain about being difficult is second nature to somebody else. If you want to make a distro accessible to beginners it's already there imo. It's not linuxses fault that windows was default for so much stuff forever. It's just a miracle that so many games work as well as they do in so short of a time all because of steam and they haven't even managed to get steam os out yet. Imagine that. Most of the stuff not even designed for linux already works before the actual steam deck releases. Imagine once game developers start targeting linux by default. That's amazing.