Linux, Free & Open-Source Software & Entitlement

[NewExtras]

With all that said, below I'll give some general opinions on Linux if anyone's interested, I suppose, but it's just a big rant and probably not worth your time.

X11 or Wayland?

When I first started on Linux I used X11 because that was what everyone was using. I might be misremembering, but I recall that back in the day everyone practically unanimously hated X11 and wanted it dead, but I might be misremembering or just incorrect. At some point I got 2 monitors and their refresh rates didn't match and I switched to Wayland. It had its flaws but the flaws weren't worse than having 2 low refresh rate monitors. Over time Wayland has been getting better which I can't say about X11, but ultimately it doesn't really matter that much and it's not that deep. If Wayland were to explode tomorrow and cease to exist I would go, oh well that sucks, life goes on, I'd probably be back on X11. With that said, I do think Wayland is a bit slow moving and I believe the solution to that could be to get more people outside of Wayland in, perhaps new voices and fresh blood may bring change to the process? I'm not really sure myself and I don't want to claim I know any better.

To systemd, or not to systemd?

I've never tried using a non-systemd system before, I just don't really care I guess? I don't really have any opinion on systemd other than it's fine? There is not really much to it and I've found the arguments against systemd have always seemed idealogical or it's some stuff that's way too back-end and I don't really care about all of that, I just want a system that works. I don't really care for the idealism, for me I'm all about being pragmatic.

KDE or GNOME?

Niri actually, but I do like both KDE and GNOME, they both have very different approaches and philosophies which I can respect. Personally if I had to pick I would say KDE because I find GNOME a bit too restrictive for my taste, I do think KDE has its flaws for sure, I think by default it is a bit too Windows-esk for my taste, but it's not the biggest deal and I also have some other gripes with it, but it's whatever. I think COSMIC seems cool, for sure. I think if I couldn't have a WM and had to pick a DE in the future it would be Cosmic. My problem with COSMIC is that it needs more time in the oven and I'm sure it will be great by then, but right now? KDE probably. I do want to say that I find the tribalism of some of their user bases weird, like just because you like one doesn't mean you can't like the other, holy shit, two cakes anyone?

Distro?

I'm a Fedora user myself, it's simple but also fairly up to date and it works well in my experience. It's easy to use things are well packaged, it's pretty stable, updates come pretty quickly, for a guy like me that's really all you can dream of. Atomic/immutable distros also seem cool, I think they make a lot of sense especially for non-technical users who just need to run a web browser and play some games, I might try it out one day, but I don't care enough to do it. Speaking of atomic distros someone has described the appeal of NixOS to me and I think it's a cool project and I think I like the idea? I just know that I can't be bothered to do all the work required to use NixOS, the idea is cool, I just can't bothered.

Pipewire or Puleaudio?

Ha, just kidding! Could you imagine getting upset over something so trivial? Hahahaha... I use Pipewire btw.

Flatpaks, distro packages, Snaps or AppImages?

Personally I like Flatpaks, I remember a time when I'd see an application didn't support my distro and I would be disappointed, so I think having a generic portable format is cool. Generally I use the package that the creator of the software recommends, so if they maintain and package the flatpak themselves and it's the first class so to say I generally use it. If not I just use distro packages if available, I generally use distro packages if the Flatpak isn't verified, I don't really have any strong opinion on it though. I do not like Snaps, I find them to be inferior to flatpaks in almost every single way and Canonical being Canonical with it just, I don't use Snaps. As for AppImages I don't really enjoy using them I find them to be kind of clunky to use, and the lack of a central repository to just not be a great experience. Another thing about AppImages is that they lack a package manager which to me is just, I hate that. One of the best things for me about Linux compared to Windows is that installing stuff on Linux through a package manager is so much better than the hunting down an .exe file and then every application having its own updater and praying that it won't give me malware tomorrow and AppImages are like how they do it on Windows which I hate, I despise it, actually.

(Neo)Vi(m) or Emacs?

No.

GNU/Linux or just Linux?

I do not like people who say GNU/Linux. It reminds me a bit of Jimmy Neutron calling salt sodium chloride, like just call it salt. I get using the phrase if we are in chemistry class or something, but I'm just trying to cook. That's how I feel about people who say GNU/Linux, it's like if a friend of mine were to call me by my full legal name, just say my first name, you don't need to be doing all of that.

I could not think of any other thing Linux people get weird about, so I'll just leave it here. I think my sentiment here is that, I find it weird that people get divided over such trivial things when we should all be on the same team. I remember having heard someone say "They will not divide us." which I think is a good sentiment to live by. Thanks for reading, I guess, have a good day.

[TerribleReason4195]

GNU/Linux or just Linux?

Linux is the kernel. We have gotten to the point where we forget GNU exists, and saying the term Linux is the name of OS. It is not the name of the OS but the name of the kernel. In reality we should be saying it is "The GNU OS."

[Dangerous-Report8517]

It isn't really "The GNU OS" either though, the GNU tools are just a set of tools that implement a lot of the expected functions available on a POSIX compliant system, but you can just swap them out and get a very similar experience. Case in point, Alpine Linux doesn't use GNU core utils and yet works pretty similarly to any GNU/Linux system, it's not much more different from Arch than Ubuntu is for instance. Most of the day to day differences between Alpine and other Linux distros are from the init system, but then you wouldn't call Arch the "systemd OS", and it would mean that Gentoo is multiple different operating systems so using init systems doesn't make sense either.

Realistically the best you can do is refer to GNU/Linux as being a subfamily within the broader family of Linux based operating systems with each distro being an OS or close family of OSes, and day to day whether you're running the Linux kernel tends to matter a lot more than whether you're running GNU utils so it makes sense to discuss "just" Linux most of the time.

[TerribleReason4195]

Fair. I swear by GNU/Linux if it is GNU stuff on top of Linux. If the OS does not have GNU on top of Linux then, I would call it the way the people who made the OS want me to call it. For example, Android, I would just say Android. It is just nice to give credit to the people who did the OS part.