[Discuss] Community out-reach... convert the masses?

[slitt at troubleshooters.com (Steve Litt)]

Ron said on Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:02:12 -0800

>Looks like it's that time of month where Steve yells at clouds and Ron
>defends clouds. In a new venue this month!
>
>
>Steve Litt wrote on 2025-02-18 08:40:
>
>> Desktop Windows serves a purpose in the Linux ecosystem. It keeps 
>> the lazy, "I refuse to learn simple shellscripts" people off our 
>> mailing lists, so our computing lives don't get watered down.  
>
>And that elitist attitude still besmirches Linux & FLOSS decades later.

s/besmirches/blesses/


>> For the past 25 years, recruiting these "non-nerd" users has been 
>> the excuse for making Linux ever more complexificated,  
>
>I like that word, "complexificated"!
>
>
>As to the "non-nerd" recruitment, that's silly. Long time Linux users
>want systems that aren't a joke to use: 

Egg-xactly! So why would we re-foist Windows on them all over again?


>the ability to plug an average
>laptop into a 4K screen and get mixed DPI display; 

I'll take your word for it. I have no 4K screens and I don't know what
a mixed DPI display.

>ability to get
>seamless multi-source audio, 

Who doesn't have seamless multi-source audio?

>seamless networking, 

Who doesn't have seamless networking? Nobody I know.

>and so many other
>things, that *Linux users* want and that other platform users take for 
>granted.

GPF, Bluescreen, need for daily prophylactic reboots, overbloating
state of the art hardware after 2 years, inability to tell the computer
a recipe for how to do something, and having to remember points and
clicks from 

>It's ridiculous to think Linux desktop experience ought to suck like
>it's the 1990s to keep things pure for some reason.

Yeah, the necessity to constantly use lsmod, insmod and modprobe
kinda sucked. So did mknod. I was soooo glad when they came up with
udev system. But now I'm brushing up on mknod again in case the systemd
folks deprecate non-systemd use of the udev system. Kind of ironic.

>You might be okay forever yelling at the clouds because your Favourite
>Distro can't even participate in a Zoom call, but the other 99.9% of
>the world expects that to Just Work and if it doesn't, something's
>seriously wrong.

>> to the point where interchangeable parts, the step up that led to 
>> the Industrial Revolution, is now very difficult in Linux.  
>
>Again, nonsense.

Perfect sense.

>You chose a niche distro (Void) for dogmatic / ideological reasons
>(runit init system / no systemd / no Pulse Audio), 

I chose a niche distro because a sans-systemd distro is currently
niche. Why don't I want systemd? It's not ideological. I want
interchangeable parts, and numerous testpoints of my choice, not meters
given me by systemd to see inside their welded shut albatross.

>and either it's a 
>lousy choice or you're just not skilled enough to tweak it enough to 
>participate in simple *Zoom* calls!

The world uses Zoom. I don't know why a *Linux* group would use it,
given that Zoom picks and chooses which Linuces to work with.


>You want free / FLOSS software, yet also feel entitled to get your free
>software in precisely the manner you approve of.

The truth is subtly different from the preceding sentence. The truth is
that I feel entitled to free software that allows me to perform simple
config and scaffolding to make it work precisely in the manner that
fits my workflow. You know, like pretty much all non-KDE software
worked before 2014.


>Sounding like the people you described as:
>
>> the lazy, "I refuse to learn simple $new_tools" people  

Yeah, I don't need to try to use a blowtorch as a computer repair
tool to know it's a bad idea.

>> POSIX? Poettering himself said POSIX is no good.  
>
>Posix is nice, it's not an immutable law.

POSIX is a spectacular tool, and just because Linux isn't 100% POSIX
and isn't certified doesn't mean you throw away the wonders it
does bestow on Linux.


>If it's so important to you, get a Mac, it's certified Posix compliant,
>Linux is *not*.

If I wanted a Mac, I wouldn't be treasuring non-systemd Linux'
interchangeable parts. Mac is the very essence of locked down, take it
or leave it stuff I'm trying to relieve Linux of.

[snip]

>There are lots of modern tools doing great jobs at scales that have
>never been possible before, but the "digital Amish" types who have some
>arbitrary cut-off date for when technology should have stopped in its
>tracks (1850? 1999?) cannot ever understand this.

You want scalable stuff, my shellscripts plus simple softwares that
each do one thing and do it will will scale to the moon.

SteveT

Steve Litt 

http://444domains.com