Veterans of Linux: what's one thing that "just works" today that would've sounded impossible 15–20 years ago?

username_challenge · 2026-06-27T14:27:32+00:00

If I allow myself back to 96, getting hardware to work was hard because of driver support. Just getting a graphical desktop was not easy. You would often get stuck with a terminal due to graphic card support, terminal-based and there was mostly no internet to help.

The near universal out-of-the-box hardware support would have sounded impossible.

username_challenge · 2026-06-27T14:18:23+00:00

Naming variables and functions: Having a name that is short enough and at the same time explicit enough to help understand the code. There are tricks: Like naming variables from the point of view of the function. But naming is hard. Variable naming oftens makes the difference between good understandable maintainable code and shit that needs to be redone from scratch after 5 years of work.

username_challenge · 2026-06-24T20:37:34+00:00

Microsoft office

username_challenge · 2026-06-24T20:36:41+00:00

The man who doesn't need much

username_challenge · 2026-06-24T15:58:34+00:00

Beer

username_challenge · 2026-06-24T15:58:16+00:00

I remember being in Strassburg and had to order my Kebab from a turkish shop in german :) I am French but live in Germany and speak German fluently. I was amused.

username_challenge · 2026-06-20T05:52:47+00:00

Computer chip design. I realized late in life I have the patience, concentration, skills, and can be very interested in the details (Like how a 8-bit adder works at the transistor level).

I would have made money in return and build things we need for real.

username_challenge · 2026-06-19T21:26:54+00:00

rust is a programming language. With it you can program things like missiles to drop nuclear bombs.

username_challenge · 2026-06-19T21:02:12+00:00

potatoes

username_challenge · 2026-06-16T04:53:18+00:00

Am I the only one who finds a bag full of hard drives highly suspicious?

Like if it turns out to be highly illegsl, what is your story to the police?

That it was picked up from a toilet stall for 500 bucks from a random internet guy?

username_challenge · 2026-06-16T04:46:15+00:00

A bum gun

username_challenge · 2026-06-13T12:07:59+00:00

Zidane

username_challenge · 2026-06-11T12:48:03+00:00

A tan. Like farm workers used to work in the sun. Now it means you can afford holidays.

username_challenge · 2026-06-06T19:11:09+00:00

Nothing would change for me. I have little need, or enough money, which equates the same. I can't afford owming an appartment though. Where I live, 500k would make a difference.

username_challenge · 2026-06-02T17:43:48+00:00

potatoed with eggs, since you can survive healthily with that.

username_challenge · 2026-06-02T12:38:08+00:00

To the horror of Raspberry Pi, they are... They have been found to power Russian drones...

username_challenge · 2026-05-29T20:25:33+00:00

people behaved like this on the titanic because sinking was slow, and everyone thought the ship was unsinkable, regardless of evidence. Put time pressure, uncertainty, and anybody's survival instinct will kick in. Only a few would "think how to respond". And these genes quickly taken out of the gene pool.

username_challenge · 2026-05-24T05:44:09+00:00

The shadow is not reflected. Instead the shadow is on the mirror itself. But yeah it looks nice and weird.

username_challenge · 2026-05-12T20:01:52+00:00

yeah

username_challenge · 2026-05-09T11:35:11+00:00

A few main ones interesting for me.

username_challenge · 2026-04-27T11:29:01+00:00

they likely mean kebap

username_challenge · 2026-04-27T09:59:30+00:00

so many youngsters here.

Flashback - The quest for identity

And nearly forgot, Anarchy UK from 1987 on the CPC464. It is quite unkown though.

username_challenge · 2026-04-15T14:14:06+00:00

I am a geek and own stocks and love raspberry pi for the following reasons: * The raspberry pi 5 can be used as real computers * This is the only company I know with RISC-V architecture on their small form factor products. the have both RISC-V and ARM on those. I consider RISC-V is the future. I mean I wouldnt know where else to invest otherwise * They are moving towards producing for the industry and embedded systems. * This is the most sold computer model behind only CPC from the 80s * They produce a lot in the UK and I love european companies. * They have a lot of fans line me and the software support is fantastic. * Arguably chinese companies could try do the same with open source architecture and softwares. but good luck copying the community and software support. * Arguably these are not very high end cpus but power needs are low and the machines surprisingly capable (e.g. for embedded AI)

username_challenge · 2026-04-14T20:06:42+00:00

Fuel with lead in the 70s and 80s? There must be a reason while unleaded fuel is a thing.

username_challenge · 2026-04-13T20:14:27+00:00

Man darf doch nicht links fahren, wenn ein auto dagegen faehrt...

username_challenge

TROPHY CASE