Agree on the infinite scrolling being generally bad, especially on comments. Same goes for the obnoxious "more" tiny links that obscure half of the content for no reason
> First and foremost, LBRY is a new protocol that allows anyone to build apps that interact with digital content on the LBRY network. Apps built using the protocol allow creators to upload their work to the LBRY network of hosts (like BitTorrent), to set a price per stream or download (like iTunes) or give it away for free (like YouTube without ads). The work you publish could be videos, audio files, documents, or any other type of file.
LBRY works nicely, but hasn't got a lot of traction. Haven't seen it crop up much since last year's Linux Sucks 2020 video.
Incidentally, from Firefox I can right click the video > Save Video As... and I can download the video to watch later. Was surprised to see there doesn't seem to be a download button anywhere on the page, though.
I listened for five and a half minutes before he said anything of any substance. When the substance arrived it was rather thin. This would have been far better for me as a blog post.
It would be nice if we actually had a rule to add a tl;dw to videos over 5 minutes on HN. This was 6 minutes of rambling before he said anything meaningful.
How does product management work at ubuntu? I mean, is there someone (or a group) with a coordinated plan or is it just random little steps in mostly right directions wherever someone finds the time to patch something?
I just can't get warm with linux, even though I'd love to and it's still mostly drivers, what apps are available and how badly they run holding me back.
Canonical makes Ubuntu, and their work is based on an upstream distro, Debian. Their focus right now is providing a server distro with an emphasis on cloud, as well as selling support.
I think it's questionable if canonical has a clear "focus". They certainly do work on their server side (after years of focusing, and doing great work, on the desktop) - and like (evry?) Linux vendor they sell support and access to a live patch service.
We do use Ubuntu a lot for desktop and servers - yet I'm not entirely sure why we would buy anything from canonical - beyond just to support the overall organization? I'd love to hear if anyone have war stories about canonical (or redhat, suse) support turning out to be a great investment?
I must admit I'm a bit worried about the shift towards snap packages though - we might shift back to Debian on the server side.
Arguably after getting the job (of improving the Linux desktop experience) done. (not alone, by any stretch - but Ubuntu, when they started shipping free cd/dvds - did a lot to package debia for the masses, I'd say).
Linux might suck sometimes, but IMHO it sucks much less than Windows (MacOS I can't say because I never really used it). I'm running Kubuntu 20.04 right now on a Thinkpad T490, and everything except the fingerprint sensor (which I never use anyway) just works out of the box. I find the UI looks absolutely great and more polished than Windows 10, everything is really snappy and responsive and there are a ton of great open-source productivity apps I can choose from (Krita, Dolphin, Konsole, ...). I'm still blown away of how good an operating system can be that is being developed mostly by volunteers without any central authority. 10 years ago Windows might have been on top of desktop Linux, but the progress that window managers like Gnome and KDE have made since then is significant, while Windows seems to be stuck in 2010 design-wise.
Hard to say, as a power user I of course enjoy having all the great tooling below the surface, like a proper shell and the ability to easily run all kinds of services like databases. Having a package manager like apt is also great, as most software can be installed/uninstalled/upgraded with a single command.
Regarding the UI: The KDE UI is just very discreet and doesn't get in the way, and there are a ton of small productivity features that are really handy (multiple workspaces, mouse and keyboard gestures, widgets, highly configurable panels, different themes etc.). Windows feels quite limited and slow in comparison (I also run it on the laptop for things like gaming and Powerpoint), sometimes e.g. the explorer will take several seconds to open and the UI can be sluggish without reason. I think Windows 10 was really innovative and great when it came out, it didn't improve much since then IMHO. On the other hand, Linux WMs like KDE or Gnome constantly evolve and get better since they are not governed by a central authority that needs to worry about commercial interests.
I've been using windows, Macos and KDE extensively.
I by far prefer KDE.
I think things work pretty much as well on Linux/KDE as they do on Mac/win. The apple mantra "it just works" is just not true.
With Linux/KDE I get extensibility and can make the platform streamlined to my use cases. That said, it's not perfect, but the amount of wtf/day is less on Linux for me.
One simple example is the file dialog that is a disaster in gnome and Macos. Windows so so, KDE it's good.
The goal to simplify things for end users that runs deep on Macos and gnome I think makes things more unusable than simple and clear.
The quick navigation between windows is another example where I really don't understand how people can work efficiently on Mac. On Linux I can easily jump between windows, have virtual desktops with organised applications.
On vanilla Mac you have cumbersome keyboard navigation and have to switch to one app before you can switch to the right window of that app.
If you can just rant for a little longer, I'll be eternally grateful. Rant Topic: how to get KDE to run under Wayland on Debian Bullseye.
KDE on Wayland is shipping in Bullseye now. But Debian's old system of choosing a window manager, /etc/alternatives, only appears to work for X. No clues under /usr/share/doc, no one on IRC #debian has a clue either, and I'm right out of ideas.
Sadly my HDMI port works only on Wayland, not X. So unless I can get KDE working, it's Gnome3 for me. Gnome3's titlebar and I aren't compatible.
Probably also true for .Net but I haven't checked.
Running smaller apps is also noticeably quicker on Linux.
Once I benchmarked a hello world .Net app on both a new Windows and in a VirtualBox VM on the same machine. The difference is in the 10x or 100x range.
This is especially obvious when working with anything that uses git. On Linux it happens as you lift your hand from enter.
On Windows you can wait a couple of seconds.
Compared to Gnome, I feel KDE treats me like an adult. Gnome wants to tell me how things are supposed to be. In KDE everything is configurable (so use something with sane defaults like KDE Neon).
I found this comment really interesting, thanks for sharing.
I guess I could say I'm a power user (long time LAMP stack dev), but I've never gotten my hands dirty with other distros / Desktop Environments other than vanilla Ubuntu.
I recently upgraded my PC which now has a decent Nvidia GPU (2070) along with an i7 and 32Gb of pretty decent ram - and yet I'm finding my Ubuntu experience (18.04) isn't particularly responsive.
The lag is especially noticeable whilst I'm on a Zoom team meeting and I change windows or adjust window sizes.
I'm now wondering whether I should give Kubuntu a try?
I don't think this is related to the NVIDIA drivers, personally I just use the integrated Intel graphics on Linux as I don't need 3D acceleration and as the NVIDIA card drains the battery quite fast.
As others have said try installing the proprietary driver, maybe that'll fix it. I'm a KDE user since several years though so I don't have much experience with Gnome, I switched to KDE because it had (has?) better support for fractional scaling, which I direly need to make a multi-monitor High DPI setup usable.
Back in the 90s / 2000s I only needed to upgrade my OS every 4 to 5 years or so - and I guess that attitude kinda stuck (in that I didn't consider Ubuntu 18.04 to be all that old - and I figured that it being an LTS version would cover my newer hardware).
Anyway I take your point - I think it's time to upgrade to 20.04 :)
No offence to anyone who’s in support of it, but Gnome has never been the “quick and responsive” choice. They choose to focus more on helping users make connections between input and effect (Click minimize, see an animation of the window minimizing to it’s final position), same goal as OSX.
There are dozens of window managers who’s focus is on responsiveness (Xfce jumps to mind) if you want to explore that side of it.
> No offence to anyone who’s in support of it, but Gnome has never been the “quick and responsive” choice.
I always used other desktop environments like LXDE / LXQT. The speed difference you mention was one of the reasons. But now my HDMI port only works under Wayland. So now I use Gnome3 (under sufferance).
The difference between speed difference between Wayland and X11 is so big, it blows away the speed improvement LXQT gets you, so Gnome3 is actually faster than the rest now. I presume that will change when more Desktop environments move to Wayland, but for now that's the reality.
It is my understanding that most of Google's services run on a Linux fork, which they keep rebasing and ocassionally some of their changes get mainlined.
Will Google move everything to Fuchsia/Zircon? Very unlikely.
I think Linux will continue to be the de-facto OS for servers. That's what people know how to use and work with.
FreeBSD is cool too, but much less popular. If Linux goes away, we can use FreeBSD or Hurd. But it won't go away.
He talks about SJWs attacking Linus Torvald and (successfully) cornering him into feeling guilty and leaving.
It seems to currently be the best way to destroy a competitor: Attack him on SJW grounds. Same technique was used against Julian Assange, the accusation was on, then off, then on, then off bow that he’s jailed. Convenient!
For our freedom, we should fight this. Crimes should be pursued penally, and proven. Not pursued by a crowd of mobsters. This is #1 danger to our freedom.
I have funding allocated for open-source in my company. My only requirement is:
- Either don’t have an ethics policy,
- Either, if one is present, it must explicitly say that Whites and men should not be discriminated against.
So far, we have allocated 0% of our pool. All of Debian, Postgresql, Apache and similar have programs specifically targeted at Black people, while no effort is made in non-discrimination.
This has to end. Linus Torvalds is white, and discriminating against Whites is the best way to end up with Windows, Amazon Aurora and license fees for every library we use.
There's some weight to some of this for sure. I don't think using past history and longevity of OSes makes much sense though. There's just not enough data, and Linux also fills a very specific niche that is decidedly not filled by the other leading OSes, which gives it the market robustness it has seen so far I feel. To replace it, you would need to fill it's shoes, because it is entrenched in user land and some very big commercial industries.
Maybe that day will come, but I don't even see a competitor lurking in the waters yet, so I don't think it will be soon.
For those that don’t understand:
Brian Lunduke does a version of this speech every year.
It’s supposed to be a light hearted jab at the GNU/Linux system and community.
and
“sucks” as a technical term means “fails to meet expectations” and does not mean “is bad”
It's an important thing to do. We have to criticize our favourite system and push to make it better. Being on the defense against FUD and advocating for our system makes it a bit harder to do that, so outlets like this are key.
Linux probably won’t last forever, but I will wager a lot of money that a Google OS won’t be its replacement.
Also, Pop!_OS, despite the clumsy name, is the best OS I’ve used. I was Windows only for 20 years, Mac for 5, and Pop only recently, so I’m probably still in the honeymoon phase. But if you like keyboard-friendly desktops that are still easy for non power users, Pop is really quite good.
They saw a chunk of Ubuntu users that didn't like where Ubuntu is heading and decided to step in and give them and alternative. They did no disappoint.
Both linux and windows seem to be stagnating. Windows died when they decided to stop making new versions. How can you innovate without scrapping the old stuff? Linux was always a mishmash of poor and top notch things cobbled together. At least windows had some coherent design philosophy but that's not the case anymore. It's like they have just given up.
They've never really done a real new version built from the ground up. Well not since Windows NT (in 1993) and Windows 95. I guess you could argue that Vista was a big overhaul but that took a long time and was still NT. The Windows 10 way is more like OS X or Ubuntu with incremental changes over time.
And they do remove or replace things in new Windows versions. They even tried removing Paint but that got a lot of push back from people. Sometimes they only remove things for new installs but other times they replace things for everyone, like the screenshot tool or Edge with Chromium based Edge.
I can't really understand the obsession with distros, they all still use pretty much the same packages and few different desktop environments. Most likely if some piece of hardware won't work on one distro it won't work on others. If a nice tool/app exists on one distro you can find it for others. And Gimp is still sh*t on all of them.
There is barely any new software and there hasn't been for the last decade or so. Apart from programming tools and command-line stuff. But desktop computing seems to be stuck in the 2000s in general.
Sorry I didn't mean to imply an obsession. I'm a relatively high-level Linux user so I was just wondering what you were referring too. Your comment cleared that up though - thanks.
My surface level impression of Ubuntu's innovation since I started using it around 2005 is that its interface usability and driver support has improved consistently - but I can totally see what you mean about the lack of improvements in the applications themselves.
I do hear that gaming on Linux has improved quite a bit but I'm admittedly not much of a gamer these days so I can't comment.
Honestly the problem is windows sucks way more.
I have Linux (Ubuntu) and window on my laptop and I shudder when I have to use Windows. Windows is so damn slow! I'm just shocked at how long it can take to do the most basic tasks on windows.
If Excel and Word were on Linux I would never use Windows again. The Linux alternatives (especially for Excel) are not up to scratch.
Am liking Google sheets and docs more and more.
I share the sentiment. It always surprises how windows is sometimes even more shoddy in some ways. The software ecosystem isn't even that much better, unlike the Mac.
After using a Linux distro as my main desktop OS, there was no way I was ever going back to the monstrosity that is Windows. No matter how bad Linux sucks in some regards, it is the black sheep of the family that will always have that special place in my heart.
Any program that is Windows only, will be run on a VM. I like my systems clean, focused, lightweight & minimal.
I think he's wrong. I think this is like when everyone predicted Web Assembly would take over the world.
There's something to be said about being able to fiddle with everything and anything on both a server, and a desktop.
Android is pretty much closed, same for mac and windows. Linux gives you a lot of freedom. I don't see desktop Linux really ever having a large market share, but I do expect that there will be a thinning of options.
His points about maintenance of large projects is valid. But it is how new solutions get built.
I'm surprised that AWS hasn't busted into the Linux space to put pressure on the other cloud competitors.
I think there’s too much corporate dependence on Linux for it to go away. There may be a tragedy of the commons where companies dependent on Linux fail to invest enough in it to keep it thriving. And corporate purposes may not align with hobbyist purposes, but I think Linux will persist as more than a zombie.
I’m somewhat more worried about the maintainability and churn of the ecosystem built up around Linux. The video mentioned OpenBSD a couple of times. OpenBSD shoulders a disproportionate share of the burden in maintaining important infrastructure. Take a look at all the spinoff projects OpenBSD is responsible for, feel queasy, and then write them a check. They make a pretty great OS too ;-)
Honestly I use Linux for the same reason people use Windows: out of familiarity. But progressively my experience is getting so bad that I am strongly considering Windows with WSL.
Example: My wifi drops occasionally. Enough to be super annoying. It used to work well, some update years ago skrewed it up.
Another example from today: Launching Steam bricks my system. No, I don't mean "Steam crashes". Not even "my DE crashes". My whole system freezes, and after hard reset it cannot load. Something something skrews config royally.
I am so tired of spending my weekends trying to find out what is wrong with my system now, instead of relaxing.
Ouch. I can relate to a bit of some of your issues. What saved me from all these seemingly mysterious bugs is going with a pure Arch system. I was using Manjaro at the time and it wasn't fun patching it just so that it could break on the next system upgrade.
I digress, in my experience, whole system freezes usually points to system running out of ram and/or swap to fallback on. Might be worth checking out zram. Though this admittedly is a problem the Linux kernel has had for the longest time.
Weak sauce. I remember enjoying his talk last year, this is pretty disappointing. All his evidence that Linux is dying seems flimsy.
• RMS has been sidelined. That was because of RMS-specific reasons, not some grand conspiracy against FOSS.
• ESR has been sidelined. That was because of ESR-specific reasons, not some grand conspiracy against FOSS.
• I'm optimistic the FSF and OSI will get by fine without them. This at least seems like a possibility worth acknowledging.
• He seems to assert that if the kernel's complexity continues to bloat out of control, the whole project will be doomed to eventually stall and implode. That doesn't seem likely. If the complexity gets unmanageable, I imagine they'd make radical changes, or perhaps we could even see major forks, rather than Linux collapsing entirely like the fall of Rome. edit Or did Rome fork? Perhaps not a great analogy.
• In-person conferences are down, on account of a global pandemic. So? He asserts there's no way they'll return after the pandemic, but this is baseless. Even if the organisations that run these events are in trouble, if the demand is there then new ones will arise. There weren't always Linux events, after all.
• No operating system lasts forever. That doesn't seem right empirically. We've had Linux and Windows dominating for a long time. He acknowledges that operating systems evolve, but I don't think that's enough.
• He doesn't seem to have any real prediction about the future, beyond the Linux kernel specifically will no longer be dominant. Why would we expect Haiku or the BSDs to overtake the Linux kernel?
I still can't quite believe he applauded people for breaking lockdown rules to hold small-scale Linux conferences.
74 comments
[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 165 ms ] thread- Keyboard controls to skip forward/reverse with arrow keys, pause with space
- Video speed adjustment
- Threaded comments
Edit: Critique for the infinite scrolling for comments. Makes it insanely annoying to reach the footer for some information about the site.
https://lbry.com/faq/what-is-lbry
> First and foremost, LBRY is a new protocol that allows anyone to build apps that interact with digital content on the LBRY network. Apps built using the protocol allow creators to upload their work to the LBRY network of hosts (like BitTorrent), to set a price per stream or download (like iTunes) or give it away for free (like YouTube without ads). The work you publish could be videos, audio files, documents, or any other type of file.
Incidentally, from Firefox I can right click the video > Save Video As... and I can download the video to watch later. Was surprised to see there doesn't seem to be a download button anywhere on the page, though.
I'd love read the tldr
- rms and esr are ousted
- no community events due to COVID
- IBM bought Red Hat
- More companies are contributing to Linux than ever
- Google is developing Fuchsia
- Other OSes didn't last forever either
Yea, there is really not much to it.
Google is in for the long game.
I just can't get warm with linux, even though I'd love to and it's still mostly drivers, what apps are available and how badly they run holding me back.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_(company)
We do use Ubuntu a lot for desktop and servers - yet I'm not entirely sure why we would buy anything from canonical - beyond just to support the overall organization? I'd love to hear if anyone have war stories about canonical (or redhat, suse) support turning out to be a great investment?
I must admit I'm a bit worried about the shift towards snap packages though - we might shift back to Debian on the server side.
I haven't spent enough time in Gnome or KDE to really know.
What things/features do you enjoy about them, that are missing from windows 10?
Regarding the UI: The KDE UI is just very discreet and doesn't get in the way, and there are a ton of small productivity features that are really handy (multiple workspaces, mouse and keyboard gestures, widgets, highly configurable panels, different themes etc.). Windows feels quite limited and slow in comparison (I also run it on the laptop for things like gaming and Powerpoint), sometimes e.g. the explorer will take several seconds to open and the UI can be sluggish without reason. I think Windows 10 was really innovative and great when it came out, it didn't improve much since then IMHO. On the other hand, Linux WMs like KDE or Gnome constantly evolve and get better since they are not governed by a central authority that needs to worry about commercial interests.
I by far prefer KDE.
I think things work pretty much as well on Linux/KDE as they do on Mac/win. The apple mantra "it just works" is just not true.
With Linux/KDE I get extensibility and can make the platform streamlined to my use cases. That said, it's not perfect, but the amount of wtf/day is less on Linux for me.
One simple example is the file dialog that is a disaster in gnome and Macos. Windows so so, KDE it's good.
The goal to simplify things for end users that runs deep on Macos and gnome I think makes things more unusable than simple and clear.
The quick navigation between windows is another example where I really don't understand how people can work efficiently on Mac. On Linux I can easily jump between windows, have virtual desktops with organised applications. On vanilla Mac you have cumbersome keyboard navigation and have to switch to one app before you can switch to the right window of that app.
I'll stop ranting now.
If you can just rant for a little longer, I'll be eternally grateful. Rant Topic: how to get KDE to run under Wayland on Debian Bullseye.
KDE on Wayland is shipping in Bullseye now. But Debian's old system of choosing a window manager, /etc/alternatives, only appears to work for X. No clues under /usr/share/doc, no one on IRC #debian has a clue either, and I'm right out of ideas.
Sadly my HDMI port works only on Wayland, not X. So unless I can get KDE working, it's Gnome3 for me. Gnome3's titlebar and I aren't compatible.
Java compiles in 30% shorter time.
Probably also true for .Net but I haven't checked.
Running smaller apps is also noticeably quicker on Linux.
Once I benchmarked a hello world .Net app on both a new Windows and in a VirtualBox VM on the same machine. The difference is in the 10x or 100x range.
This is especially obvious when working with anything that uses git. On Linux it happens as you lift your hand from enter.
On Windows you can wait a couple of seconds.
Compared to Gnome, I feel KDE treats me like an adult. Gnome wants to tell me how things are supposed to be. In KDE everything is configurable (so use something with sane defaults like KDE Neon).
Linux is mostly developed by paid developers these days.
> https://blog.adafruit.com/2019/10/28/who-contributes-to-the-...
Linux on the Desktop has always volunteer-driven.
I think KDE used to have like 15-ish paid developers at its peak and nowadays it even fewer.
I guess I could say I'm a power user (long time LAMP stack dev), but I've never gotten my hands dirty with other distros / Desktop Environments other than vanilla Ubuntu.
I recently upgraded my PC which now has a decent Nvidia GPU (2070) along with an i7 and 32Gb of pretty decent ram - and yet I'm finding my Ubuntu experience (18.04) isn't particularly responsive.
The lag is especially noticeable whilst I'm on a Zoom team meeting and I change windows or adjust window sizes.
I'm now wondering whether I should give Kubuntu a try?
I just checked my installation notes - and I ran the following when setting up the new rig:
sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall
Not sure if that answers your question?
As others have said try installing the proprietary driver, maybe that'll fix it. I'm a KDE user since several years though so I don't have much experience with Gnome, I switched to KDE because it had (has?) better support for fractional scaling, which I direly need to make a multi-monitor High DPI setup usable.
Back in the 90s / 2000s I only needed to upgrade my OS every 4 to 5 years or so - and I guess that attitude kinda stuck (in that I didn't consider Ubuntu 18.04 to be all that old - and I figured that it being an LTS version would cover my newer hardware).
Anyway I take your point - I think it's time to upgrade to 20.04 :)
There are dozens of window managers who’s focus is on responsiveness (Xfce jumps to mind) if you want to explore that side of it.
I always used other desktop environments like LXDE / LXQT. The speed difference you mention was one of the reasons. But now my HDMI port only works under Wayland. So now I use Gnome3 (under sufferance).
The difference between speed difference between Wayland and X11 is so big, it blows away the speed improvement LXQT gets you, so Gnome3 is actually faster than the rest now. I presume that will change when more Desktop environments move to Wayland, but for now that's the reality.
Switched the missus as well. Since it easier to have a homogenous set of machines.
She's as non-technical as they come. But browsers work the same. So she hardly noticed. Most modern casual usage is on the web anyways.
And for advanced things I haven't yet found a thing I couldn't easily do.
Will Google migrate all their server software to Fuchsia? I am not too convinced that's their idea, isn't it?
Both. An entire OS that replaces ChromeOS and Android. Zircon as the kernel instead of Linux and Fuchsia as the whole OS.
> Will Google migrate all their server software to Fuchsia? I am not too convinced that's their idea, isn't it?
If they can get Zircon optimised on their own Google silicon then it maybe possible. But who knows.
Will Google move everything to Fuchsia/Zircon? Very unlikely.
I think Linux will continue to be the de-facto OS for servers. That's what people know how to use and work with.
FreeBSD is cool too, but much less popular. If Linux goes away, we can use FreeBSD or Hurd. But it won't go away.
It seems to currently be the best way to destroy a competitor: Attack him on SJW grounds. Same technique was used against Julian Assange, the accusation was on, then off, then on, then off bow that he’s jailed. Convenient!
For our freedom, we should fight this. Crimes should be pursued penally, and proven. Not pursued by a crowd of mobsters. This is #1 danger to our freedom.
I have funding allocated for open-source in my company. My only requirement is:
- Either don’t have an ethics policy,
- Either, if one is present, it must explicitly say that Whites and men should not be discriminated against.
So far, we have allocated 0% of our pool. All of Debian, Postgresql, Apache and similar have programs specifically targeted at Black people, while no effort is made in non-discrimination.
This has to end. Linus Torvalds is white, and discriminating against Whites is the best way to end up with Windows, Amazon Aurora and license fees for every library we use.
Attacks against Whites have to stop.
You might find this article interesting: https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...
Maybe that day will come, but I don't even see a competitor lurking in the waters yet, so I don't think it will be soon.
Although to be fair, the newer editions are quite a bit more pessimistic.
Also, Pop!_OS, despite the clumsy name, is the best OS I’ve used. I was Windows only for 20 years, Mac for 5, and Pop only recently, so I’m probably still in the honeymoon phase. But if you like keyboard-friendly desktops that are still easy for non power users, Pop is really quite good.
They saw a chunk of Ubuntu users that didn't like where Ubuntu is heading and decided to step in and give them and alternative. They did no disappoint.
And they do remove or replace things in new Windows versions. They even tried removing Paint but that got a lot of push back from people. Sometimes they only remove things for new installs but other times they replace things for everyone, like the screenshot tool or Edge with Chromium based Edge.
My experience has been the complete opposite.
My surface level impression of Ubuntu's innovation since I started using it around 2005 is that its interface usability and driver support has improved consistently - but I can totally see what you mean about the lack of improvements in the applications themselves.
I do hear that gaming on Linux has improved quite a bit but I'm admittedly not much of a gamer these days so I can't comment.
If Excel and Word were on Linux I would never use Windows again. The Linux alternatives (especially for Excel) are not up to scratch. Am liking Google sheets and docs more and more.
Any program that is Windows only, will be run on a VM. I like my systems clean, focused, lightweight & minimal.
Not to mention, that linux greatest strength is random people contributing to the kernel to get linux to work.
Only in young/new fields would I be worried fuchsia will get the lead and hobbyists will follow.
But then again Google's os could fail similarly to stadia.
There's something to be said about being able to fiddle with everything and anything on both a server, and a desktop.
Android is pretty much closed, same for mac and windows. Linux gives you a lot of freedom. I don't see desktop Linux really ever having a large market share, but I do expect that there will be a thinning of options.
His points about maintenance of large projects is valid. But it is how new solutions get built.
I'm surprised that AWS hasn't busted into the Linux space to put pressure on the other cloud competitors.
I’m somewhat more worried about the maintainability and churn of the ecosystem built up around Linux. The video mentioned OpenBSD a couple of times. OpenBSD shoulders a disproportionate share of the burden in maintaining important infrastructure. Take a look at all the spinoff projects OpenBSD is responsible for, feel queasy, and then write them a check. They make a pretty great OS too ;-)
First 10 replies with your LBC address (with account history on hm) get some additional LBC!
Example: My wifi drops occasionally. Enough to be super annoying. It used to work well, some update years ago skrewed it up.
Another example from today: Launching Steam bricks my system. No, I don't mean "Steam crashes". Not even "my DE crashes". My whole system freezes, and after hard reset it cannot load. Something something skrews config royally.
I am so tired of spending my weekends trying to find out what is wrong with my system now, instead of relaxing.
I digress, in my experience, whole system freezes usually points to system running out of ram and/or swap to fallback on. Might be worth checking out zram. Though this admittedly is a problem the Linux kernel has had for the longest time.
• RMS has been sidelined. That was because of RMS-specific reasons, not some grand conspiracy against FOSS.
• ESR has been sidelined. That was because of ESR-specific reasons, not some grand conspiracy against FOSS.
• I'm optimistic the FSF and OSI will get by fine without them. This at least seems like a possibility worth acknowledging.
• He seems to assert that if the kernel's complexity continues to bloat out of control, the whole project will be doomed to eventually stall and implode. That doesn't seem likely. If the complexity gets unmanageable, I imagine they'd make radical changes, or perhaps we could even see major forks, rather than Linux collapsing entirely like the fall of Rome. edit Or did Rome fork? Perhaps not a great analogy.
• In-person conferences are down, on account of a global pandemic. So? He asserts there's no way they'll return after the pandemic, but this is baseless. Even if the organisations that run these events are in trouble, if the demand is there then new ones will arise. There weren't always Linux events, after all.
• No operating system lasts forever. That doesn't seem right empirically. We've had Linux and Windows dominating for a long time. He acknowledges that operating systems evolve, but I don't think that's enough.
• He doesn't seem to have any real prediction about the future, beyond the Linux kernel specifically will no longer be dominant. Why would we expect Haiku or the BSDs to overtake the Linux kernel?
I still can't quite believe he applauded people for breaking lockdown rules to hold small-scale Linux conferences.