i honestly just wanna express my gratitude to all the people who made linux what it is today over the last decades, the experience is incomparable to the one i had when first installing debian in 2007. i wish i were more skilled in order to meaningfully give back to this community.
and to all the newbies: thanks for joining our ranks! please dont be scared by the rather elitist attitude that some users display. we secretly all love you!
If you want to give back but don’t have coding skills, you can always be nice and help onboard new users! There’s always been this attitude of ‘linux is better’ immediately followed by ‘rtfm n00b’ when users try to get started. A more sympathetic crowd would go a long way.
It’s a good thing tfm is so good. I don’t use Arch but I’ve used the Arch Wiki so many times to solve my problems.
thanks for the piece of mind! while i do have some skills due to my work, its not remotely enough to work on linux. im gonna be a recruiter then…
Probably not a recruiter, but supporting those who are trying to switch or are needing support on forums like here or other places. Help them find solutions, be kind to them when they are struggling, encourage them if another user is derisive.
I think I first installed linux some time around 2009. I’m only just now starting to contribute to libraries, unrelated to linux. Its such a cool feeling growing along side the open source movement.
The games I play work just fine under Linux. I’m EXTREMELY thankful for every single person that has contributed to Linux or the apps they can use.
If I wasn’t such a monkey I’d help any way I could.
I’m not such a monkey, and I could probably contribute if I put my mind to it, but I just don’t have the time… Instead I try to contribute documentation and money when I can. Everything helps!
Once I got the steam deck and saw basically all my games could run in linux, I made the change fully on my laptops and desktop computers.
There’s not a single windows left in my house.
I’m a former IT Manager and system admin. And I am so fucking frustrated and pissed at Microsoft’s bullshit that I want nothing to do with them, and nothing of theirs in my house.
I cannot believe I’m going to say this: But from and enterprise point of view, I Miss Balmer. Nadella is a fucking useless wannabe Steve Jobs tool who has zero concept of what made Microsoft what it is. There’s horror stories of dealing with Microsoft on a corporate level that attributed to me having a mental breakdown.
I feel the same way. I’m not a pro programmer or anything, but we can still be positive members of the community and help out users and share why Linux is a better alternative, and that’s gotta count for something! :)
Writing a good bug report is oftentimes all the help that’s needed.
Translate!
Sorry Americans…
What’s odd to me is the cultural zeitgeist has moved to folks being aware that Microsoft (& Google & Apple) is collecting data on them to being the butt of jokes, yet those folks aren’t adopting an alternatives. With over a decade on Linux I’m now pretty out of touch with the opposite feeling. I guess the closest analog I have is not being able to realistically leave Android behind, but that is more hardware than software (banking app already don’t let you root or otherwise flash your device so I have given up hope in trying with them).
A few days ago I tried to install Windows 11 on the PC of a friend. It didn’t work because of missing SATA drivers. Anyway, I was shocked how many points there are where Microsoft or Apple (we used his mac to create the USB drive) tries to sell something (buy pro version of fan controll now) or wants your permissions to gather all your data.
I convinced him to let me install debian. When it came to creating the default user he was hesitant to use his full name, because telemetry :D
I mean I don’t really see the point of using your real name on your system unless you often forget who you are. I would praise my friend tho for having the correct skeptical reaction even if it should be relatively harmless.
I also think it’s a healthy attitude but at the same time it’s sad that people can’t trust their own devices any longer.
Using your real name can have benefits, like metadata in office documents or things like that. If you are sure your devices are yours and secure, there shouldn’t be a reason not to use your own name. Unfortunately this isn’t the case anymore if you are using anything else but Linux
If a machine is going to have multiple users (all my computers have multiple profiles for family members) all those users have to be called something, and I’ve not got the energy or the creativity to come up with fun and funky usernames for every system when my actual name is more than good enough.
Username is required for the home folder & login; name isn’t required for anything
I’m using Kitsune Mask right now and it’s working pretty well on hiding root from my banking app and Google pay.
banking app already don’t let you root or otherwise flash your device
It’s unfortunately only developed for the Pixel series of phones, but I’ve been using my banking apps on GrapheneOS with no issues.
Is that with a locked bootloader and sandbox google play?
yup
banking app already don’t let you root or otherwise flash your device so I have given up hope in trying with them
You can get around that pretty easily by fooling SafetyNet / Play Integrity and hiding root from those apps. My phones have all been rooted for years and I never had issues with banking apps. I don’t even run any google services anymore and the apps I use are fine with that.
I would not say easily. And even if you pass SafetyNet, your banking app may still not work. I have one, and I haven’t figured out what it checks for, maybe LineageOS name or something. Would probably have to tear the apk apart to find out.
Do you use Magisk? I assume you have done the following already?
- Enable Zygisk & the DenyList
- (If Google apps are installed, deny all Google apps root access)
- Deny the app in question root access
- Install PlayIntegrityFix on newer devices OR SafetyNetFix on older devices (don’t install both)
- Reboot, force stop app and clear storage/cache
- (Check if it works with this and this)
That should do it for all apps that do not require strong integrity.
Thanks for the list. I didn’t have PlayIntegrityFix. Unfortunately it does not seem to be helping with the app.
First one doesn’t pass all checks, but the second one does.
Have you managed to get Google Wallet/Pay working?
Yes, on my old phone it worked fine with the SafetyNetFix. I use microG now so Google Wallet is not implemented (yet).
Majority of people just dont care about being spied upon unless it directly affects them somehow, at which point its too late for that person. But others having data on you wont likely directly affect you at the moment so not enough people get burned by it for general attitude to change. Smart people understand that all this can very easily change and prepare by not allowing all of their information be available for questionable people to use. Others make fun of them for this and call them crazy until one day they suddenly aren’t so crazy any more.
Majority of people just dont care about being spied upon unless it directly affects them somehow,
Remind them that strangers know their porn fetishes, and see if that changes their minds.
They actually do care tho about the tracking—if they weren’t privacy wouldn’t be included in marketing like it is now. They are just more willing to accept it as a fact of life rather than dealing with it (or don’t know that they can do something or how to start).
We should make this easier for folks ’cause every email I send from a non-data-collection host usually ends up on a Google or Microsoft server, etc. Every silly Discord chatroom you join, or Facebook page you like has the same ramifications.
I think we need to do some really difficult investigations that essentially can show concrete proof of how this affects people:
"See you were looking up vacations and insurance right? Well you signed up to your car’s connected service, you have an Alexa in your house, and a smart TV and a fridge all talking to each other…and they all worked together to put together a profile of how much you make and how old you are and everything else…
…so your neighbor looked up the same insurance and vacations and is paying about $200 less for the exact same of each, because they use AdBlock and don’t allow spy devices in their house."
And then finish with the real kicker:
“I know you didn’t ask to participate, but we just scraped all this information about you off the Internet and didn’t even need to ask you. We had to ask your neighbor to participate though.”
(banking app already don’t let you root or otherwise flash your device so I have given up hope in trying with them)
Idk why this myth keeps getting peddled. You can use any banking app on any custom ROM, rooted or unrooted (though I see no point in rooting these days). And even if an banking app blocked you from using their app…the mobile website exists if you really need mobile access to your bank.
mobile website exists if you really need mobile access to your bank.
This isn’t actually always true.
Yeah my girlfriend’s online-only business account can only be used via their proprietary app.
Been a royal pain in the arse for her.
I haven’t rooted in a long time. What would make the hassle of going to my bank’s website worthwhile these days?
This isn’t a “myth” they detect both root & custom ROMs so even if you wanted to use an unrooted custom ROM you can’t. Rooting your phone just to skirt around them should be the opposite of what they want as there is some security implications to rooting your phone. And the current solutions are all temporary workarounds til the banking apps find a new way to partner with Google to prevent modifications of any kind.
In my country, at least one bank has shutdown & discontinued their website which is often just the first domino before others start doing it too. My bank is slow to adopt tech, but their site was created to detect IE and Netscape Navigator. I would assume they would kill that website before upgrading it to actually work on the modern web where a fixed CRT isn’t the only screen size.
European banks require strong security. Even a web-based login requires 2FA using the bank’s mobile app - so if that app won’t run, well, no banking for you today!
That’s not true. Specially with older banks, they don’t let you run their shitty apps on rooted phones. And some younger banks don’t even let you do certain tasks on the website, they are mobile first.
Oh god, it’s happening. Everybody stay calm
In Russian it’s called Вендекапец and is a bit like second coming.
Maybe it’s not happening yet, but the bigger share it has, the faster it’ll grow.
And MS and Apple have only themselves to blame.
20 years ago, when the first Linux offensive happened, so to say, with Mandrake and a wave of Linux-native games and proprietary products, and IBM support, people would criticize Linux for having inconsistent chaotic UIs and experience. I was a Windows-only kid, so this is retrospective and people can correct me.
Not sure if anybody remembers, but then you could find most of Windows’ important settings in one place, and it looked so polished and patient and relaxing, both 2000 and XP.
Mac OS X was all about toys and shiny colors, but there was also the spirit of it being very polished and consistent and light and fresh.
So - Linux can still be very usable. While both MacOS and Windows even look cheap, I wonder how they managed to achieve that. Even Gnome doesn’t look cheap despite desperately trying to imitate MacOS. Not even speaking about ergonomics.
YEAR OF THE LINUX DESKTOP!!1!11
Not until Netcraft confirms that Windows is dead
Just wait for Windows 10’s service life to run out. That’s when I’m switching full time
The attrition is slow, but every user lost to Linux is likely lost forever. After a year or so of totally free software, who is going to build a new windows compatible PC, buy a Windows 11 license, and pay for subscription service just to do word processing, or play a few incompatible games?
Windows completely overestimates people’s willingness to throw out their laptop or PC just to get a new OS paintjob. For every person who does it, another one will leave their ecosystem forever.
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Old Brazilian hack to use Windows: just don’t buy it.
I’m never daily driving Windows again, but im not sure if I will ever be free of dual booting for some games.
I think I didn’t buy a Windows license ever. Got Win 7 free from my college and always could upgrade for free to the next version. I never used MS Office, mostly did use the Google suite. Games were the only thing that kept me, especially since I got more privacy continuous over the past few years.
I’m currently dual booting Win 11 and Linux mint as a test phase. Actually just running windows for the proprietary phone client I need for work. Otherwise I’m newly exclusively using LM right now. Though I might make the switch to EndeavourOS for it’s rolling release approach and AUR.
Only thing I really hate is that there are some proprietary software like ICUE, L-Connect a proper scanning software for my printer including OCR (there is a version for Linux but it doesn’t include OCR) or shitty driver support for my graphics card. But none of those are issues coming from Linux itself but rather from the lack of support from the developers. Also, I love DLSS and Ray tracing but seriously… fuck Nvidia.
For the OCR, have you tried tesseract? For printed documents it can take image input and generate a pdf with selectable text. I don’t OCR much but it has been useful when I tried a few times.
You might be able to have a script that takes the scanner input into tesseract and output a pdf. It only works on a single image per run so I had to make script to run it on whole pdf by separating it and stitching it back together.
@Senseless I’d just like to add that there are GUI frontends to tesseract that make things a lot easier. I particularly like gImageReader, but there are plenty of different GUIs for people with different tastes!
I have a Corsair keyboard and on Linux I use ckb-next to control rgb and stuff
RGB isn’t really the issue for me. At least not when using icue. I need it to control my AIO / fans / temps
Ah gotcha. I just set a custom fan curve in the BIOS which has been working well for me in Linux (I also use a Corsair AIO + Commander Pro).
I just learned of the liquidctl application which supposedly works for this. I’ll check it out later this afternoon and see how it works!
Nice. I’d appreciate some feedback, if you like. Currently in the middle of switching to EndeavourOS as a Arch noob. Am I allowed so say “I use arch btw” now?
Windows licenses AFAIK are already rarely bought on their own. The vast majority of users get one by having it bundled to a new device they purchase.
Unless its corporate, because then you are paying for windows separate from the PC, and user based licensing for server access, and subscription fees for office. and EOS W10 fees coming
I have been slowly switching to Linux for the last year. I have 2 Lenovo ThinkPad’s and an HP EliteDesk running Ubuntu. I have my gaming PC dual booted but, for the moment, mainly using Linux Mint.
It has been an easy transition and I am not some Linux whiz.
You’re a whiz now Harry!
Keep running it for a while and after some time 5 or 10 years you will struggle when people ask you about (basic) Windows stuff.
“Oh to change that basic thing? Control panel…wait…no…the other control panel, the real one…no …(searches it despite MS hiding it more than ever) ok now it’s in one of these obscure hyperlinks half-assedly tossed to the side…which opens a dialogue…with 4 tabs…after you click “advanced”…THERE I turned off Fastboot for you.”
I can’t believe that’s how I used to have to do things lmao.
The scariest thing they can do to Linux now market-wise is to bring back Windows 2000’s UI and paradigm and cleanliness, but with modern kernel and drivers and functionality.
Thankfully they are too dumb for that.
Been in Linux solely since 2008. I can’t do shit in Windows when it’s put in front of me.
At this rate we might just see the Year of the Linux DesktopTM on our deathbeds!
Do you really need that the majority of users use the same OS you use? It’d be nice but not necessary at all.
It helps a lot. Because then, a Linux support won’t be such an afterthought, and you wouldn’t have to deal with stuff like popular games adding anti-cheat that bans Linux users.
Right now, some game developers aren’t even willing to enable EAC Linux support, which is like a one checkbox they need to enable for it to work.
Easy. Every year is the Year of the Linux Desktop™.
the real Year of the Linux Desktop™ was the friends we made along the way.
Made the switch this year, I’m not going back.
At this point I use Linux for everything except my music production hobby (Mac for that) and even then I use Renoise and BitWig on Linux. I’ve been on Linux since 1996 but I haven’t been 100% Linux until the past two years.
Wait, you do or do not just use Linux for music production?
What he said is that he does the majority of his hobby on a Mac, but also installed music apps on Linux.
Apple managed to grab a good chunk of the market by making some well-functioning creative apps early on, but I’m not sure if they really have any advantage over Windows anymore.
Music production on Linux is still somewhat behind, due to limited software. People get paid for making that stuff on other platforms, so Linux developers are scarce.
Some of it is also moving to tablets and phones these days, so the kind of person to buy a Mac only for easy music production will probably just get a dongle for their iPad.
You’ll still need a pc/mac for the full studio experience. Not because of software, but because its difficult to rig an entire music studio into a touchscreen with a single usb port. I mean, sure it’s possible, but you don’t want to. Latency, multiple monitors and a shit load of controllers make it physically
impossibleunreliable.On the bright side for Linux, music production is actually very low demanding, so it makes perfect sense to run an old laptop with a low spec distro and still have the same options as the state-of-the-art rig. Young starving artists will probably go that way instead of buying Mac.
Music production on Linux is still somewhat behind, due to limited software.
Audio support has historically been dogshit, and still to this day can be incredibly finicky. Audio latency has also typically been by far the best on Mac OS. But I think lately with Linux with the exact right combination of hardware and software it can be better. Can.
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F1c923fvcwyla1.jpg
I’m a newbie bedroom music producer but I’ve actually had more luck with my audio setup on Linux than I did on Windows 10.
I’m using an older Scarlet 2i2 to record guitar and back on Windows I was always having driver issues or Windows randomly resetting the sample rate making my DAW freak out at me.
On Linux it just works right away without me needing to download or tweak anything. Only part of my setup that needed tweaking was using yabridge for a few Windows VSTs.
We need a bedroom music producer community.
Sorry for hijacking this beautiful conversation you talented gentlemen are having, but can help me out?
I wanted to learn electronic music creation. I learnt very briefly how fl studio works, and then got busy due to my workload. Now I want to give it a go again. I heard llms is good for Linux, but I don’t understand how to get various instrument samples like fl studio. How do I set it all up? Can you point me to any good resources. I am also not committed to lmms and am open to suggestions.
I cannot comment on LLMs for music generation but, if you are starting from scratch, there are a few methods that I think are interesting.
- Sequencer/Groovebox: Hardware like the Elektron Digitakt and Polyend Play+ use the “piano roll” style generation that you find in most DAWs. How you import and edit samples, then sequence them in the piano roll, varies from one to the other. Fortunately, you can find a lot of video tutorials for most DAWs and hardware based sequencers on YouTube.
- Music Trackers: Whether it is a hardware tracker like the Polyend Tracker or the M8, or a software tracker like Renoise, this type of sample edit and sequencing really lends itself to electronic music. Plenty of tutorials on YouTube.
- Samplers: Here you have hardware like the Roland SP404 MKii, the MPC One, and the Teenage Engineering EP133 KO II and DAWs like Native Instruments Maschine (also requires Maschine hardware). If you have a tablet, check out Koala Sampler. It might be the best $5 you’ll spend this year.
In my opinion, trackers are an extremely fast and powerful way to create electronic music. The main complaint people have is the learning curve since almost everything else uses the “piano roll” method. Since you are starting from scratch, that complaint doesn’t really apply because no matter what you select, you’ll have to learn from zero.
…I think the previous comment is mistyping LMMS software to LLM.
Spez started it all for me.
Spez shit the bed and now I run linux.
I am in the top 4%
I hope to see it reach 10% within my lifetime
Maybe by 2050
Uhh 2030 imo
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probably just a flatpack issue. I don’t bother using flatpack at all and still have not ran into anything that truly needs it (From a gaming use at least)
Also wonder what the hell is your 2MB package that carry a need of 70 runtimes?
Even stuff like Steam for me only pull in like mesa and stuff that are a lot. And barely happenes
In fact. Last time I installed Arch (2 days ago) and I redo my flatpak. 10 apps, pull in 34 packages in total. Further apps only pull in themselves and maybe 1-2 packages with maximum because everything else are covered.
Don
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Let’s stop pretending that Linux has a small market share. It is flipping 4%
For gaming. For gaming its 4%. Which is the thing everyone says its bad at.
If the latest Steam survey is anything to go by, it’s actually lower of a percentage when it comes to gaming, representing 1.94% of the market. The stats mentioned in the article come from StatCounter which monitors web traffic.
