MX Linux. It’s exactly how I’d set up Debian if I wasn’t too lazy. Although, I’ve gone back to Debian after Bookwarm was released. I love it but miss MX

The author is exited but I’m not. I am not a big fan of corporations taking the free work of FOSS developers and turning it into a proprietary dystopia.

You have a point here indeed. But it is much easier to create a CLI tool that combines the updates of all systems rather than destroying the incredible things that flatpak and pip offer. A five-line bach script would do. Although, a reliable distro would probably want to rely on something much more elegant and harder to break. For Fedora specifically, the python-based dnf tool should be straightforward to be extended to do that. Perhaps the Debian apt tool has a lot of functionality to carry on and may be harder to do. In the essence of unix philosophy and modular approach, it should be a separate tool. I’m looking forward to that too.

I know that a lot of people share the same thoughts with you but I respectfully disagree. If you want your system to be updated only with your apt/yum/dnf program, then just don’t install anything useing snap/flatpak/etc. Sure, you will not have all the apps available in the repos, which was also the case in the past before these systems. Back then, your only option was to compile from source, which was more work-intensive than flatpaks/appimages/snaps. And updating was also much more complicated. Therefore, unless you wanted something really special, you’d stick to your repos. Flatpaks allow developers to distribute their software (and users to install it) in a less labour-intensive manner for the developer. Compiling and testing your app for Debian, Fedora, Arch, SuSE, MX-Linux, Linux Mint, Linux Mint DE, Gentoo, and all the other popular distros is an impossible task for small developers. Flatpaks was a godsend for them and for the users who don’t want to compile from source. Now, you can argue that we shouldn’t have all these systems (flatpak, snap, appimage, docker, etc…) but one would be OK. And again I will disagree. One of the most important aspects of FOSS is diversity. Embrace it even with its drawbacks. It would require a much longer post to explain this and others have done it already better than I would.

well…

That was really nice but I think the lady was lucky that she met you. Can you imagine if she had met Linux Torvalds himself? He would have told her off for not knowing that the 2.6 kernel was many years old, the whole Linux world had moved on with strides beyond this old piece of software and reached 6.5 and there was no reason wasting everyone’s time with this kind of question. Plus: “we never, ever break the user experience and hence the mouse should work without questions!”

This appears to be true on the surface but is not accurate. I am a structural engineer and when people need to do something with their buildings, the engineers (structural, mechanical, fire, etc.) and the architects need the plans or at least a survey. If a side has the plans and the authority on the plans, that side has huge leverage over the building. Fortunately, this is never the case with buildings. Plans are considered public information. It would be so much better if the same applied to software.

That’s a fantastic description!

Sorry mate. I love them all! All free software, especially GPL-based but still have high appreciation for the BSDs as well. Even Red Hat that has messed everything up recently, has a soft spot in my heart, with Fedora being the first distro I really enjoyed Linux in 2003 (very first Fedora Core). However, IBM/RedHat make a real effort to become the one and only distro that I may list here.

One of the many values of GNU/Linux, and free software in general, is choice. You don’t have to use any particular distro if it doesn’t fit your use case or preferences. I don’t use Gentoo but really appreciate that it exists. If I ever wanted more control over my system, I could turn to this tried and tested distro. I am quite lazy these days and from a short period of breaking Arch, I started breaking Debian, then staying with Debian stable without breaking it and now I have moved to MX Linux, which is Debian that someone else (the MX/Antix team) have set up in the way that I want without having to install everything myself. But, yes. There is great value in Gentoo (like in Kali, Tails, Slackware, Guix, etc).

Is that all? I can live with that! A few months ago that I checked there were a lot more open issues.

I guess my biggest difficulty will be that the Macbook is my wife’s new laptop and she’ll kill me if I change the OS… again!

My first comment would be that free software made by a corporation is still free software. Like Eclipse, which was originally made by IBM and is a huge ecosystem, especially for “java and friends.” So, there is nothing wrong with VS Code(ium). It is a “proper” open source editor and a very good one (I don’t use it though - I prefer EMACS).

As for community-base alternatives (which is probably what you mean), you could consider kdevelop or pulsar. There are other alternatives which are equally good and surely one of them will fit your purpose. You mentioned Kate and I can’t find anything wrong with it, especially once you start installing the plugins that are relevant to what you do. Same with Gedit.

I don’t get the same impression in my community. I’m pretty sure that we all love capitalism in “[email protected]” What communities do you waste your time on?

I love Fedora. It was my OS of preference 20y ago. Now I am old and use Debian. Arch was a very shortlived adventure in a transitional period that I felt tired of keep breaking all my OSs out of boredom.

They can all serve the same purpose. The advantages of 7zip are the following:

1. It is totally free (as both in free beer and free speach)
2. The 7z compression format is superior to rar because it can compress either more or faster (not both though)
3. The rar format is proprietary. You are free to decompress but not to compress. In a business setting, you could theoretically get in trouble if you don’t have a license. In some countries, e.g. USA, even outside a business setting. But if you have been using winrar forever, I can’t see you changing your ways anytime soon! :)

How can it be one? GNU/Linux, Firefox, EMACS, Ardour, Vitalium, SurgeXT, KX Studio (OK, this is repo), Carla, Gnome, Debian, MX Linux, XFCE, KDE Plasma, GIMP I am absolutely sure I am missing more s/w packages that I love but don’t come to mind.

Restrict the API to each server? (just joking!) Perhaps we can try being more polite and kind towards each other. I feel that this is the case so far. I fear the moment that “mainstream” users find out about Lemmy!

I have the same feeling too. The communities here keep growing. The first weeks here felt a bit… lonely. But now it feels like the fediverse is starting to thive!

That’s a good point. Perhaps FSF has got the message and GPL v.4 will give FOSS developers the option to ensure that all derivatives of our code will remain publicly available and not placed behind paywalls.

This explains a lot. Execs are not engineers, they don’t understand software, nor how the community contributes value to the project. They just need to find an income stream and are willing to break everything they don’t understand to achieve it. Even the company they work for.