Linux users! Why Linux?

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 hour ago, wasab said:

Linux means total control and ABLSOUTE POWAH!!!!

Not really. If we poke at the GNU license, why do we need pages upon pages of terms and conditions while spouting "this is software freedom!" If your software was truly free, you'd let me do whatever the hell I want, including not distributing the source code (or changes I did) and not perpetuating the exact license it was before.

 

If you want me to believe you preach freedom, release it to the public domain.

 

And if we want to poke at the philosophy that if you don't like some software you can just switch. But oh wait, there's nothing else that does the functionality. And it requires using this interface or library unless I want to roll out my own.

 

The only thing I see FOSS doing that's good is being transparent. And while it should mean exposure to multiple sets of eyes, it doesn't always mean that. And basically you have to trust this complex box of things to work right and in a way you agree with.

 

To put in another way, every law in the US is available for you to read. But did you actually go through every one of them or do you just trust the system works?

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You can develop on it, game on it, and hack with it(looking at you Kali fans).

You can with any other OS too. Otherwise they wouldn't be useable 

[wasab]

21 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Not really. If we poke at the GNU license, why do we need pages upon pages of terms and conditions while spouting "this is software freedom!" If your software was truly free, you'd let me do whatever the hell I want, including not distributing the source code (or changes I did) and not perpetuating the exact license it was before.

 

If you want me to believe you preach freedom, release it to the public domain.

 

And if we want to poke at the philosophy that if you don't like some software you can just switch. But oh wait, there's nothing else that does the functionality. And it requires using this interface or library unless I want to roll out my own.

 

The only thing I see FOSS doing that's good is being transparent. And while it should mean exposure to multiple sets of eyes, it doesn't always mean that. And basically you have to trust this complex box of things to work right and in a way you agree with.

 

To put in another way, every law in the US is available for you to read. But did you actually go through every one of them or do you just trust the system works?

You can with any other OS too. Otherwise they wouldn't be useable 

It means I can easily fork the source code and do whatever I want with it then redistribute it under the same license. It aint that difficult. 

 

Case point, Linux mint. Everything is here, bare and for all to look at. 

https://github.com/linuxmint

http://packages.linuxmint.com

An average user might not bother or have the know how but those pro users who wants to tweak something in the source code can easily do it and share it with other users with the same mindset. 

 

Edit: you can with any other OS huh. Well, can I tell windows update manager to shut the hell up?

[Mira Yurizaki]

7 minutes ago, wasab said:

It means I can easy fork the source code and do whatever I want with it then redistribute it under the same license. It aint that difficult. 

Okay, but anything forked from a GNU license must be released with GNU. I can't release it as something else.

 

That's a restriction. Not freedom. But then again I guess people could argue "freedom" itself has restrictions but holy crap GNU has a lot of restrictions and obligations compared to other FOSS licenses.

 

I like permissive licenses like BSD and MIT because the only restriction is you retain the copyright of the author. 

 

However note that I'm not preaching software freedom. I'm just expressing my disdain for what GNU is preaching vs what it really says.

7 minutes ago, wasab said:

... share it with other users with the same mindset. 

And there's no room for people with similar mindsets but with different ideas on some things?

[wasab]

3 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Okay, but anything forked from a GNU license must be released with GNU. I can't release it as something else.

 

That's a restriction. Not freedom. But then again I guess people could argue "freedom" itself has restrictions but holy crap GNU has a lot of restrictions and obligations compared to other FOSS licenses.

 

I like permissive licenses like BSD and MIT because the only restriction is you retain the copyright of the author. 

 

However note that I'm not preaching software freedom. I'm just expressing my disdain for what GNU is preaching vs what it really says.

And there's no room for people with similar mindsets but with different ideas on some things?

Anything other than GNU restricts freedom. GNU exists to protect the author's and others right to redistribute and use the works of others by reciprocating the rights and benefits of the license.

[Mira Yurizaki]

8 hours ago, wasab said:

Anything other than GNU restricts freedom. GNU exists to protect the author's and others right to redistribute and use the works of others by reciprocating the rights and benefits of the license.

Yeah, anything other than GNU's version of freedom. It's like when European conquers visited lands, showed them "the way" (for lack of a better term), and enforced it. Software developers should be allowed to self-determinate. Not enforce their beliefs on others.

[wasab]

28 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Yeah, anything other than GNU's version of freedom. It's like when European conquers visited lands, showed them "the way" (for lack of a better term), and enforced it. Software developers should be allowed to self-determinate. Not enforce their beliefs on others.

How are the developers gonna do that without a license to enforce the freedom? Anyone can just steal your code and then turn it proprietary for commercial purposes and for his own gain. The original author or authors will then have no legal remedy. 

[Guest]

It's my server OS of choice. Reliability, uptime, remote management, backup, quick to restore in the event of a disaster. I don't use it for desktop too often, but I have tons of server instances.

[Giganthrax]

Well then, this forum inspired me to start tinkering with Linux again.

 

After using Linux Mint Xfce for a few days in VirtualBox, I decided to take the plunge and install it on my crappy laptop. I use the laptop for internet surfing, writing in LibreOffice, watching movies, listening to music, downloading torrents, etc., but its crappy specs (integrated intel graphics, 2gb ddr3, shoddy build) often struggle with Windows 10, with CPU usage often maxing out even during these simple operations.

 

Hopefully, Mint Xfce will serve my laptop well, and I'll come here to cry if it turns out to be a bad idea.  

[Koeshi]

As many others have said it gives me greater control over the OS and I like to tinker.  In general I just find it more fun/pleasant to use than Windows or MacOS.

 

As to the user who complained about using the terminal, two things.  1.  The terminal is an amazing tool for what you can do so quickly and easily for some tasks compared to any GUI.  2.  Have you tried using Windows for server work?  There are a lot of functions that are only accessible via PoSh (and in some cases only cmd).  The server side of Windows is a mess as MS keeps saying that certain items are being changed/removed/deprecated, but they give up on a lot of project halfway through, so I have to use PoSh for some things and cmd for others when they haven't moved all of the commands over. 

[Ashleyyyy]

i advocated for and was a big fan of Linux for a long time, but i hated having to use VM's for things like MS Office.. about a week ago i got so frustrated with Windows and Linux i sold my phone and laptop and got a used macbook pro and iphone.. i couldn't be happier. i still use Windows for gaming, for obvious reasons. but for any sort of productivity stuff i use my macbook. 

 

EDIT: in case you look in my signature to see the model of macbook i have and go look at buying one, don't. the model i have has a high chance of gpu faillure. 

[wasab]

On 7/6/2018 at 8:04 PM, firelighter487 said:

i advocated for and was a big fan of Linux for a long time, but i hated having to use VM's for things like MS Office.. about a week ago i got so frustrated with Windows and Linux i sold my phone and laptop and got a used macbook pro and iphone.. i couldn't be happier. i still use Windows for gaming, for obvious reasons. but for any sort of productivity stuff i use my macbook. 

 

EDIT: in case you look in my signature to see the model of macbook i have and go look at buying one, don't. the model i have has a high chance of gpu faillure. 

That macbook is by now a very old hardware. Does the battery even hold a charge? 

[Ashleyyyy]

2 hours ago, wasab said:

That macbook is by now a very old hardware. Does the battery even hold a charge? 

yeah it does. not for long, but it's usable. it lasts about 2 hours with light to average use.  (web browsing, word, itunes etc). the previous owner did inform me that the mac was repaired for gpu failure in late 2017 so i don't know if the battery was replaced then.. but i don't think so because 2 hours with light to average use isn't long...

 

and "very old" is subjective.. my 12 core desktop has cpu's from 2010 yet it's almost the same speed as a 2700X... 

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Xeon-X5650-vs-AMD-Ryzen-7-2700X/m355vs3958

keep in mind i have 2 X5650's. 

[wasab]

9 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

yeah it does. not for long, but it's usable. it lasts about 2 hours with light to average use.  (web browsing, word, itunes etc). the previous owner did inform me that the mac was repaired for gpu failure in late 2017 so i don't know if the battery was replaced then.. but i don't think so because 2 hours with light to average use isn't long...

 

and "very old" is subjective.. my 12 core desktop has cpu's from 2010 yet it's almost the same speed as a 2700X... 

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Xeon-X5650-vs-AMD-Ryzen-7-2700X/m355vs3958

keep in mind i have 2 X5650's. 

How much did you pay for the old machine? 

[Ashleyyyy]

3 hours ago, wasab said:

How much did you pay for the old machine? 

my MacBook? €550. it came with 4gb of ram which I upgraded to 16 as soon as I got it. 

[Electric_Boi]

On 7/4/2018 at 1:49 AM, Pavilion said:

-snip-

Package managment

Ability to switch GUI if I don't like it (I currently use i3wm on Ubuntu 16.04.4)

Resource managment

Terminal (My god, genius created that app, it makes life so much easier)

Ability to choose distros

ZFS support

Stability

...

[Giganthrax]

Turns out Linux Mint Xfce can't really integrate with Google Cloud Print, which I use on a weekly basis.

 

Or rather, SUPPOSEDLY it can connect to it via CUPS servers or something (never heard of CUPS servers before today when I tried to make Google Cloud Print work with Linux Office & Image suites), but there are like 15 guides online on how to do it and none of them work for me. In the end I just said screw it and just printed out the documents by mailing them to myself via Gmail and google-cloud-printing them out of Chromium. 

 

Also, despite choosing the option to have my Mint installer get all the necessary multimedia playback codecs and whatnot for me, I still had to download various codecs manually and try out different versions of video players to get all the video/music files to work. 

 

Also, Mint sucks with battery life. Win10 could keep my laptop battery going for like 3-4 hours if I turned brightness down, whereas Mint can barely get 2h out of it. 

 

On the bright side, Mint does seem to have sped up my laptop about 10-15%. Chromium still absolutely destroys its performance though once it really starts chewing RAM.  

[wasab]

5 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

my MacBook? €550. it came with 4gb of ram which I upgraded to 16 as soon as I got it. 

Your Mac is old, even for Mac standard 

[wasab]

1 hour ago, Giganthrax said:

Turns out Linux Mint Xfce can't really integrate with Google Cloud Print, which I use on a weekly basis.

 

Or rather, SUPPOSEDLY it can connect to it via CUPS servers or something (never heard of CUPS servers before today when I tried to make Google Cloud Print work with Linux Office & Image suites), but there are like 15 guides online on how to do it and none of them work for me. In the end I just said screw it and just printed out the documents by mailing them to myself via Gmail and google-cloud-printing them out of Chromium. 

 

Also, despite choosing the option to have my Mint installer get all the necessary multimedia playback codecs and whatnot for me, I still had to download various codecs manually and try out different versions of video players to get all the video/music files to work. 

 

Also, Mint sucks with battery life. Win10 could keep my laptop battery going for like 3-4 hours if I turned brightness down, whereas Mint can barely get 2h out of it. 

 

On the bright side, Mint does seem to have sped up my laptop about 10-15%. Chromium still absolutely destroys its performance though once it really starts chewing RAM.  

You need to install tlp. I have the same issue with battery power when I first try mint and tlp brought the battery life on par to windows 

[Ashleyyyy]

41 minutes ago, wasab said:

Your Mac is old, even for Mac standard 

so? it's fine for what i use it for. 

[Giganthrax]

1 hour ago, wasab said:

You need to install tlp. I have the same issue with battery power when I first try mint and tlp brought the battery life on par to windows 

Thanks. I'm gonna give it a try.

[Dat Guy]

On 4.7.2018 at 1:57 AM, Rainbow Dash said:

I was forced to use Linux for programming.

 

Which language would anyone need to use to be forced to downgrade to Linux?

[Granular]

I genuinely believe that individuals, corporations and countries being in charge of their computers ( in a complete way enabled only by open sourcing and liberal licensing) is vitally important to their economic, social and intellectual independence and well-being.

As for why not use some flavor of BSD instead, I find Linux easier to work with and believe in copyleft licensing being a better choice.

[Dat Guy]

1 minute ago, Granular said:

I find Linux easier to work with and believe in copyleft licensing being a better choice.

Which BSD have you compared to which Linux?

 

How does the license affect you?

[Granular]

34 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

Which BSD have you compared to which Linux?

FreeBSD and OpenBSD to Debian and its derivatives.

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How does the license affect you?

For example, if I were to buy a Mikrotik router -even though the OS it comes with isn't free to redistribute- since it's based on the LInux kernel, which is under a copyleft license, RouterOS devs have open sourced their patches that enable the kernel to support said router and I have the ability to install a different, more free OS based on the Linux kernel on the router.

[Dat Guy]

2 minutes ago, Granular said:

FreeBSD and OpenBSD to Debian and its derivatives.

Fascinating. I found OpenBSD to be much less of a hassle than Debian.

 

2 minutes ago, Granular said:

if I were to buy a Mikrotik router -even though the OS it comes with isn't free to redistribute- since it's based on the LInux kernel, which is under a copyleft license, RouterOS devs have open sourced their patches to support said router and I have the ability to install a different, more free OS based on the Linux kernel on the router.

How does the non-copyleft, almost public domain BSD license deny you to do that?