Absolutely does provide a RAD front-end. It's actually a spectacularly well-provisioned development tool with which you can build Gnome/KDE/terminal apps, and even provides a web forms engine for deploying much the same…
Obligatory: if using Linux and want the open source equivalent: https://gambaswiki.org/website/ GAMBAS is a free development environment and a full powerful object-oriented language and development platform based on a…
I worry about this too. I wonder if this same fear was felt by those who lived through the shift in Western Europe from village to industrial town life two centuries ago, and those who likewise lived through the era of…
You state: "My advice as a Linux user of 32 years for normal people is to buy a Mac." And as a Linux user since the the MCC Interim distro[0] was made available through the floppy-distribution network in 1992, my advice…
Re: "I don't know why I am still perpetually shocked that the default assumption is that humans are somehow unique." Perhaps this might better help you understand why this assumption still holds:…
Re: "The Hardware Root of Trust and the binary blobs would still be compiled by a firm that Western governments view as a fundamental supply-chain risk." Sorry to break it to you, but all of the US hardware firms have…
[flagged]
Re: "Europe is not doing fine: Europe is definitely a declining, unstable (lots of far-right vs far-left parties opposing themselves in elections in many EU countries now) empire." If this is reality in Europe, which is…
OpenBSD and FreeBSD are great. This is coming from someone who used BSD 4.2 on a Vax 11/780 in the mid-80s. They don't lack in terms of 'technical architecture'. What these dialects of the Unix operating system do lack…
The thing about copyleft FOSS however is that the code is almost certainly available, can be vetted by any nation, and accepted into any digital sovereignty framework. If what we were talking about here are proprietary…
You say: "My concern at this point is what the picture will look like with embargoes around software development and FOSS" Can you elaborate on this point? To my mind, there is no better warranty mechanism for digital…
From the fine article: "$12.2 million, representing a 149 percent increase." One wonders just how much of a price hike - or how much of a digital sovereignty threat from the Trump regime - it would take to have the…
Re: "Or can I use the built-in Software Manager (FWIW, I really like the one in Mint, except when stuff isn't available on it.)" I think this (built-in Software Manager) is probably the right track for most normal…
You can try to stop using technology, but that wont stop the technology from using you: https://www.authoritarian-stack.info/?2 The only safe and sane path for humanity is community built software. All other roads lead…
Re: "if you want Linux to win with non-experts, it needs to target being a better experience for non-experts than the alternatives" I agree in broad terms, but let me re-capitulate this. Which OS do you think would…
Re: "Or maybe the operating system should just work reliably for (at least) the basics?" So, out of curiosity, if I tried installing MacOS on any of the 15+ computers I have at home, what are the likely chances that…
Or, you could help accelerate the move away from proprietary platforms, even if there is a small hit to you personally. This is how we help save society, rather than having others do all the work, no? In the end, it's…
Re: "I gave up and have been using a MacBook ever since lol." I'm curious. What will you do when Apple too starts shoehorning AI into every part of MacOS and when Apple introduces increasingly unpalatable or…
I can't tell if you're missing the key information or merely trolling. Steam on Linux went from 1.4% at the start of 2025 and hit 3.58% at the end of that year. That's a 156% increase in device adoption in a single…
Why do you classify the BSDs as Unix and not Linux as a Unix? Linux has about as much right to be called a Unix as the BSDs do, as those BSDs have had to be stripped of pretty much all Unix code in order to comply with…
I disagree with this assessment. Franklin didn't have the tools and process for determining the structure of DNA, only Watson and Crick did, because they used actual physical models to measure the angles and positions…
In no order in particular, these are good books: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/722412.The_Dream_Machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers:_Heroes_of_the_Compute...…
The BBC is consistently at or near the top of the "world's most trusted news sources"[0]. It's also one of the oldest news sources. "August BBC" therefore makes perfect sense and is a defensible claim. [0]…
Counterpoint: https://quillette.com/2022/12/25/character-assassination-soc...
In part, yes. Have updated my earlier comment with additional research. In short, it's complicated. And because of that complication, anyone with a vested interest or political slant can skew representation…
Absolutely does provide a RAD front-end. It's actually a spectacularly well-provisioned development tool with which you can build Gnome/KDE/terminal apps, and even provides a web forms engine for deploying much the same…
Obligatory: if using Linux and want the open source equivalent: https://gambaswiki.org/website/ GAMBAS is a free development environment and a full powerful object-oriented language and development platform based on a…
I worry about this too. I wonder if this same fear was felt by those who lived through the shift in Western Europe from village to industrial town life two centuries ago, and those who likewise lived through the era of…
You state: "My advice as a Linux user of 32 years for normal people is to buy a Mac." And as a Linux user since the the MCC Interim distro[0] was made available through the floppy-distribution network in 1992, my advice…
Re: "I don't know why I am still perpetually shocked that the default assumption is that humans are somehow unique." Perhaps this might better help you understand why this assumption still holds:…
Re: "The Hardware Root of Trust and the binary blobs would still be compiled by a firm that Western governments view as a fundamental supply-chain risk." Sorry to break it to you, but all of the US hardware firms have…
[flagged]
Re: "Europe is not doing fine: Europe is definitely a declining, unstable (lots of far-right vs far-left parties opposing themselves in elections in many EU countries now) empire." If this is reality in Europe, which is…
OpenBSD and FreeBSD are great. This is coming from someone who used BSD 4.2 on a Vax 11/780 in the mid-80s. They don't lack in terms of 'technical architecture'. What these dialects of the Unix operating system do lack…
The thing about copyleft FOSS however is that the code is almost certainly available, can be vetted by any nation, and accepted into any digital sovereignty framework. If what we were talking about here are proprietary…
You say: "My concern at this point is what the picture will look like with embargoes around software development and FOSS" Can you elaborate on this point? To my mind, there is no better warranty mechanism for digital…
From the fine article: "$12.2 million, representing a 149 percent increase." One wonders just how much of a price hike - or how much of a digital sovereignty threat from the Trump regime - it would take to have the…
Re: "Or can I use the built-in Software Manager (FWIW, I really like the one in Mint, except when stuff isn't available on it.)" I think this (built-in Software Manager) is probably the right track for most normal…
You can try to stop using technology, but that wont stop the technology from using you: https://www.authoritarian-stack.info/?2 The only safe and sane path for humanity is community built software. All other roads lead…
Re: "if you want Linux to win with non-experts, it needs to target being a better experience for non-experts than the alternatives" I agree in broad terms, but let me re-capitulate this. Which OS do you think would…
Re: "Or maybe the operating system should just work reliably for (at least) the basics?" So, out of curiosity, if I tried installing MacOS on any of the 15+ computers I have at home, what are the likely chances that…
Or, you could help accelerate the move away from proprietary platforms, even if there is a small hit to you personally. This is how we help save society, rather than having others do all the work, no? In the end, it's…
Re: "I gave up and have been using a MacBook ever since lol." I'm curious. What will you do when Apple too starts shoehorning AI into every part of MacOS and when Apple introduces increasingly unpalatable or…
I can't tell if you're missing the key information or merely trolling. Steam on Linux went from 1.4% at the start of 2025 and hit 3.58% at the end of that year. That's a 156% increase in device adoption in a single…
Why do you classify the BSDs as Unix and not Linux as a Unix? Linux has about as much right to be called a Unix as the BSDs do, as those BSDs have had to be stripped of pretty much all Unix code in order to comply with…
I disagree with this assessment. Franklin didn't have the tools and process for determining the structure of DNA, only Watson and Crick did, because they used actual physical models to measure the angles and positions…
In no order in particular, these are good books: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/722412.The_Dream_Machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers:_Heroes_of_the_Compute...…
The BBC is consistently at or near the top of the "world's most trusted news sources"[0]. It's also one of the oldest news sources. "August BBC" therefore makes perfect sense and is a defensible claim. [0]…
Counterpoint: https://quillette.com/2022/12/25/character-assassination-soc...
In part, yes. Have updated my earlier comment with additional research. In short, it's complicated. And because of that complication, anyone with a vested interest or political slant can skew representation…