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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

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  • If you’re new to Linux, then your probably not familiar with the full Linux community yet. Much like in real life, online Linux spaces tend to have a very loud minority of conservatives who hate progress.

    Usually you’ll see them hating on things like systemd, 64bit architectures, containers, new packaging systems (like Flatpak), immutable and experimental distros (like Nix), Wayland, “bloated” desktops like KDE or Gnome, and much more.

    And just like in real life, the antidote is to not take another person’s word for it. Do your own homework/try things out yourself and arrive at your own conclusions.




  • Also the Android TV app is AWESOME!

    What do you run Android TV on? Raspberry Pi? My cheapo solution has been to use an old Android phone that supports DP alt mode (USB-C to HDMI adapter) combined with a USB hub + generic air mouse/remote + customized launcher.

    It actually works surprisingly well. I installed FCast on it, so it even works like a Chromecast. If I’m watching a video on my phone using Grayjay, I can just cast it to the phone and it will start playing automatically. The only thing stopping it from being perfect is that it can’t turn the TV on automatically. As a plus, since the phone has a battery, it’s always powered on so I don’t have to wait for stuff to boot, and it uses relatively little power.

    … but overall it’s janky and finicky, and the OEM bloatware is probably spying on me, so I’ve been looking for alternatives that can match the good parts of this setup.

    I don’t like Raspberry Pis for this because they’re overpriced. I have a couple that I could use for this, but I’m hoping to find a cheaper solution, and one that I can recommend to friends/family when they ask. (the Android phone I’m using cost me a total of $15 on ebay)


  • For that side of reddit, you’re right.

    But for the uniquely useful side of reddit, federation won’t help. If I post a question like “how do I get this obscure game to run well on this obscure Linux distro?”, nobody is going to repost that for me, and if I don’t maximize the amount of eyeballs on it, it’s unlikely I’ll get an answer. My best choice is to post it on reddit, either in /r/linux_gaming or in the specific game’s subreddit.

    I assume that most users who post anything at all on reddit do it to ask questions like that.


  • The reddit concept of subreddits also doesn’t work well with federation IMO (at least no Lemmy’s implementation).

    Want to talk about video games? Well, there’s no /r/games, instead there are bunch of different /c/games on different servers with varying amounts of activity. You basically gotta make the “pick a server” decision again whenever you post something. If you make the wrong choice, your post might not get seen by anyone, and even if you post to the biggest sub, you’ll be missing out on eyeballs from people on other servers who aren’t subscribed to that instance for whatever reason.

    For example, lemmy.ml/c/linux_gaming and lemmy.world/c/linux_gaming have around the same number of subscribers. Should I post to both? Maybe the same people subscribe to both, so that’s pointless? Or maybe I’ll miss out on a lot of discussion if I post only to one? There’s no way for me to know.

    For me, it makes Lemmy less useful than reddit for asking really niche questions and getting useful answers. For posting comments on whatever pops up in my feed though, it works great.

    I don’t have any good solutions to this, and I’m sure it has been considered already. When I first joined, I remembered seeing people bring this same issue up, but it doesn’t seem like it went anywhere? (Or maybe it did?)




  • I used to think like that, but now I’m on the fence since I’ve started working much more closely with packaging. Calling it “linux” is actually kind of harmful for adoption. Devs that claim their software works on Linux mislead people into thinking it works on any Linux distro, which is rarely true. Most of the time, those devs only test on Ubuntu and no other distro.

    Maybe when Snaps finally die out and Flatpak emerges as the one true standard for desktop apps, then that problem will go away once and for all. Until then, I think we should normalize distinguishing Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, etc as separate “operating systems” instead of “distros”, which is an unnecessary and misleading term anyways.



  • I think this comment encapsulates the problem well: laymen who are not involved in the process in any way (on either side) acting like armchair experts and passing harsh judgement. You’re making some very unfair assumptions based on age, and nothing about the actual technical arguments.

    This is why people like Martin feel justified going on social media to publicly complain, because they know they’ll get a bunch of yesmen with no credible arguments to mindlessly harrass the developers they disagree with. It’s childish and unproductive, and while I’ve personally respected Martin as a developer for a long time, I don’t believe he’s mature enough to be involved in the Rust for Linux effort (tbf, he’s not the only Rust dev with this attitude). If the project fails, it will be because of this behavior, not because of the “old guys” being stubborn.