I feel like I've been gaslit into running FOSS but every success only brings me closer to fighting god
I feel like I've been gaslit into running FOSS but every success only brings me closer to fighting god
Reddit death > installing mint on my second PC > realising I can run most of the games I play and installing mint on my main PC > start learning Rust as a first foray into programming in a long time > realise I want to go back to uni and study info tech to get out of my shitty marketing job > get a shitty second hand laptop off my parents that struggles to run windows and install endeavourOS to try something different.
It really is a slippery slope. When does it end???
I've got a pretty good mixture of qualifications and am working in a tech adjacent role so I'm not starting from nothing. I have some decent connections and might be able to carve out something at my current org. So it could be worse.
Nah, just not the best time. That was 1996. 2021 was pretty good too.
Besides some high profile layoffs, there are still tons of tech jobs out there in less visible industries. Widget factories and insurance companies all have IT people, along with every one else in general.
Eh, it's not bad. Everywhere there's computers they'll need a computer janitor to keep them running. It's just not the insanity of 2021-2 where everyone needed techs and starting wages were rising rapidly
Why? No worse than any other job market right now. Sure Google layoffs get headlines but it's not like tech skill are getting any less employable across sectors. If anything those skills are more critical now than ever.
Sure, the skills are critical. But the tech industry is dysfunctional right now, and there are no signs of reform on the horizon. Anyone attempting to break into the industry is going to find it extremely difficult to get started without experience, as companies don't want to hire entry-level candidates anymore.
Even though there may be lots of high-pay, high-skill job openings, there is a dearth of true entry-level positions in IT that don't require existing work experience and advanced skills.
It really is a slippery slope. When does it end???
It ends when you open vim. There's no escape.
It never ends
The next step, you're handwriting a fixit code because said ancient one off laptop won't compile linux from scratch properly and some stupid piece of essential hardware is blocking your efforts to get to the shell first time.
You still have yet to get through some pis, then a couple of OSX boxes, a Windows VM on proxmox or when you find something in particular you want that's easier in that direction. Then move into kubernetes.
You'll end up with a couple of everything living their best life.
realise I want to go back to uni and study info tech
I highly recommend it! College as an adult who's been in the workforce is way better than college as a kid fresh out of highschool. Great opportunity to make some more friends, do some cool college activities, plus there's lots of good opportunities for student pricing on stuff if you have a .edu email and its a brilliant change of pace.
My slippery slope started with buying an old laptop off my company and deciding to install Ubuntu on it. Now all of my devices run Linux, I switched to Android with a FOSS ROM, degoogled myself in almost every way, and I run Nextcloud on an old laptop. Feels great to really own my devices and data.
It really is a slippery slope. When does it end???
Given that you're learning Rust, probably getting programming socks and a Blahaj, and then...
It ends when you write an AI better at configuring Linux than you are, but is also very good at soothing your pride... The latter is the infamous "alignment problem"
What else would we be making it for?
Your post couldn't be more true. Decades ago I was sold on MythTV, this PVR software but it only ran on Linux and you had to compile it yourself. So I gave Linux and MythTV a shot. As it turned out, both MythTV and early desktop Linux were a buggy, frustrating mess. X broke all the time. Incomprehensible, ungoogleable compile errors all the time.
I spent so much time troubleshooting MythTV and compilation problems that I ended up learning Linux inside and out and the C programming language to be able understand the compile errors. I went on to lead a major open source project and have had a long career as a programmer, using all the knowledge I gained that started with fighting MythTV.
I don't want to dox myself so I'd rather not say, but it was some time ago and I'm no longer leading that project. I do still do development in the same field though!
In 2018 I went to research why all the sites wanted my cookies so much, today I'm a free software adovocate and a Marxist
That sounds kinda like my journey, although without the Marxist part.
Maybe a bit random, but
Also I buy a year of Nebula to support creators and stick it to Google.
Would you recommend that? I also wanna quit/ reduce YouTube and enjoy learning new stuff while watching high quality content. Is it worth its money? I'm currently broke and have to watch my finances, but I wouldn't mind spending a few bucks if it's something I enjoy.
You can get a promo for $30/yr. If you're broke, it's hard to recommend it as money is better spent on needs, but if you have some disposable income I'd say it's worth it. Many large creators upload their YT videos (sans sponsorship sections) to it and add bonus exclusive content, and it doesn't come with any ads.
sysadmin
Bossmang, I know that we're paying more for RHEL licences than for the entire IT department, but if we switch to Arch we'll cut down the costs significantly.
Gets fired immediately
devops/sre
FROM: ubuntu:24.04
FROM: debian:12.4
Such distro, much hopping
I am so happy that my parents didn't buy me a better laptop a decade ago, so I was forced to use a shitty thinkpad laptop. After reading online, I figured out that Linux makes it faster...
What's your story? :)
This is pretty cool. We really have moved over from Reddit, since we already have some of the niche communities. There are plenty of Linux users already, so it shouldn’t take long for people to start posting there.
I guess there’s that beginner period when that should be allowed. I kind of wished it happened to me again, instead of daily driving boring Arch systems with no incentive to ever change.
Yeah when you're a beginner or when you get back into Linux you have like a grace period to reproduce a productive environment, then you're worried about changing too much in case it all breaks and goes wrong
Wait for Arch to slowly grind away at your sanity. One day you will realise that stability is pretty damn important, and the hopping will start once again.
Did this for a bit until i learned how to install arch and never looked back
I use arch btw
Nix stops you from hopping because it takes literal months to set everything up for a mortal.
I did try it on a second drive and was to stupid to understand the like config file where you specify your packages
There's a lot to explore after arch. We have Gentoo, NixOS, image-based distros like Silverblue. Swappable immutable core through ublue, leading you to bluefin or bazzite. Your journey is far from over
Nah i think it's pretty over... I have tried gentoo, nixos image based distros and all that. Even lfs. I'm quite comfortable with arch
I don't run Linux (though I'm admittedly more interested in it than I used to be) but the reddit API stuff definitely made me learn more about foss, and value it more.
If you’re already feeling some interests your gonna jump ship sooner or later. I made the switch last year and its been nothing short of amazing.
Steam, gog and epic games all work. Some run better then on windows, others require a tinker step.
You can run and install most exes, even pirated games using Lutrius.
Blazing fast. I have sm called hyprland sway and win11 feels like the stone age compared.
Best of all: COMPUTERS ARE FUN AGAIN You learn so much but its intuitive enough you don't even notice.
its intuitive enough you don’t even notice
a bit much
COMPUTERS ARE FUN AGAIN
agreed
Interesting to know that steam, gog, and epic (specifically) all work well for you, I've heard mixed results with Epic, some say it doesn't work. Maybe I've gotten wrong info.
I have an older laptop, and as soon as I can upgrade to something better, I'm going to use it as a Linux practice.
I am using heroic launcher to play blazing sails on epic right now. I am on Arch, which I believe is a positive since the steam deck is arch based (i heard).
The escapist 2 i have not gotten to work properly though. It runs but with like 1fps. Apparently this is because epics implementation and it runs smooth with steam. Definitely test things on a game by game basis.
I do value FOSS sodtware and like linux for it being foss(there are many other reasons too though). I do think understanding importance of Free software is much important than admiring one of the(most important) free software projects. I can see yku usibg linux soon or later in the future, along with other free programs
I think maybe I'm misunderstanding—are you saying that valuing free software is more important than valuing FOSS? FOSS is inherently free, no? Free Open Source Software. I would understand if I was talking about open source in general, but FOSS does include being free. Maybe that's not what you meant.
Sorry I mean valuing foss/free ideology rather than just one of such software called linux.
Now you just need to remove snaps. And then when Canonical still forces them on you, you move to Linux Mint, but then Linux mint won't be updated as often as you'd like. So then you move to Arch. Then you'll really be one of us
Debian testing is the way (perhaps haven't tried it but I'm intrigued to know the experience) 🤔
Mint to Arch?
That's like saying: "ok now that you have driven your for first car for a few weeks it's time to fly your first plane. Good luck."
Mint to Manjaro so you can still claim you're on arch btw but cling onto your sanity until Manjaro devs inevitability break something
I'm in the Manjaro phase right now, it's been going well for the past 2 years. Wish me luck!
"been forced" part is definitely true for Firefox and Thunderbird packages. Snap packages takes precedence over deb package, if I remember it correctly.
It is difficult to switch out the Firefox snap for the deb. If you install anything from the easy-to-use software store it'll be a snap.
I'm glad I know my way around the terminal tools
But I just installed Firefox with apt-get. Fairly certain it doesn't install the snap version that way.
It can. There was a 'feature' in Ubuntu before that made apt actually fetch the Snap version instead. I think this was the case for Chromium and Firefox. I don't know if this is still the case though.
I got pissed off at Google Photos, which led me down a self-hosting rabbit hole. Ended up installing Linux everywhere, even my "gaming" one eventually (I do development, and WSL was a resource hog).
The hardest thing to degoogle has been email - I've used the same address for years. But I use Thunderbird so at least I don't have to see ads in my fucking inbox
Yes... They don't seem to show up in the primary tab, but they're there nonetheless. Nowhere is safe, and nothing is sacred.
If you're seeing ads, install an ad blocker. I haven't seen a Gmail ad in well over a decade.
I DO have an ad blocker. I still ended up seeing an ad, that one time. It might've been on mobile. Or I might have had my ad block turned off. Either way, I've gone out of my way to make sure I never see an ad in my email again. Used mobile devtools to uninstall the Gmail client, Firefox with uBlock add-on, etc...
I use them too, they have some good stuff, but are pretty behind in usability.
I just wish they did usability a bit better, it can't be so hard. There is probably more that I didn't think of right now. Don't get me wrong, they have big potential.
Yeah I feel the trade off is worth it plus the lack of third party app access weirdly just improves my trust in their security.
May I recommend Proton Mail? I used gmail for years then decided to finally switch and it was easier than I thought, tho tbf I also don't have a lot of people who need to email me, it was mostly services where it's easier to tell them to switch over to the other mail.
EDIT: I read your later comment nvm
I'll have to check it out! Same here, mostly services on my end - but I've accumulated enough of them to make it tiresome. Still, I'll have to do it at some point
What are you using instead of Google Photos?
I'm the other way round, email was the first thing I degoogled. It's Photos I don't know how to replace.
"The project is under very active development. Expect bugs and changes. Do not use it as the only way to store your photos and videos!"
I'm aware :) really, anyone that backs up anything at all shouldn't be using ONE THING for backups.
Personally, I use it to "sync" photos from my phone to my computer. I run nightly backups via a cron script.
Still, can't say I've had any issues so far
Related: does anyone here have any thoughts on Tutanota and how it compares to Proton Mail? I've considered using it in the future.
You could switch to proton mail and synchronize the gmail account to proton, saves the hassle 👍
sudo mkdir /dev/heaven
sudo mkdir /dev/earth
sudo chmod o+rx /dev/earth
sudo systemctl start light.service
(/s, just trying to troll some systemd haters)
I guess you'd need to find him first if you want to fight him? I think TempleOS is also FOSS in case you want to find god without fighting him.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/myc7eHGg5y4
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
sudo hostnamectl set-hostname SOMETHINGNORMAL
git clone https://github.com/popey/unsnap
cd unsnap
./unsnap
The first one will set the name behind the @
sign to something not that long. I recommend just usint "PC" for privacy reasons. Often nobody needs to know your device model.
The second one removes snaps and snapd and installs installed apps as flatpak instead. Flatpak is a universal format, similar to snap, came out a bit later but not only Ubuntu uses it. Snap also works on multiple Distros but people dont like it, it is still slow (now just slowing down boot) etc.
perfect demonstration of culture sharing for a newbie. Like advising them to always trust commands they find online without even explaining them what each command does!
What hostnames do people use? I'm tired of (and bad at) naming all my devices, I just tend to leave default as op, at least I can tell them apart easily
I have NekkoDesktop
, NekkoLaptop
, NekkoLaptopJr
(new laptop) and NekkoServer
:) (Phones are just Nekko <Release>
with release being S9 and S21 for Samsung or G6 for LG)
I use names from FFXIV.
For my work-related VMs, raid bosses. It makes it easy to spot my VMs because nobody sane would name them stuff like Erichthonios or Hippokampos. Unfortunately I had to draw the line at 724P-Operated Superior Flight Unit A-lpha.
For my home server VMs/CTs, I use the names of the gods - Byregot, Rhalgr, Azeyma, etc. and Eulogia for Proxmox itself.
i use a surface pro 6, so i use "surface" as my hostname
it was running arch+gnome
i tried endeavouros+kde (because i used to use the sway version of it on my dell and liked it) but didn't like it
now it's running arch+kde
I name them after fictional robots/AI
PC is Deep Thought, laptop is Wheatley, phone K9 in etc
I go with a UUID so I never duplicate. 🤪
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_unique_identifier
my old desktop was named George, inspired by the word "GeForce" on the gpu. my new one is Leo, mostly because I just like that name, but also because it's my first desktop built for linux. My first server was Bertha bc its physical size was a lot bigger than I expected and I had to find a new place to store it, and my newest server is even bigger so I named it Marge. My clunky old 16" laptop from 2010 is named Mondo.
charlemagne
for my desktop, and invictus
for my laptop - no particular theme, just liked the names lol
My servers however previously used gods from Greek mythology though, as controversial as that apparently was (?)...
(To be fair, I think the controversy was regarding doing that in a professional / enterprise environment of which I am definitely not in)
Similar to other people:
laptop-56
phone-56
server-56 (or the actual domain name...)
...palmtop-56 (I'm not sure if that's actually possible)
I like the look of all-lowercase hyphenated words. And "56" is a conveniently short identifier I use for myself.
Ubuntu-debullshit is also pretty good.
I originally thought people will be confused by gnome, but my wife picked it up almost instantly, and has been pretty happy with it (except the lack of MS office, but there is nothing that can be done in that regard).
You have been assimilated, resistance was futile.
Seriously, though, I'm glad you're with us. The more people we get to embrace alternative approaches, the more viable the open standards will be.
Fuck did we all go down the exact same pipeline? I just installed Linux last week and I haven't booted up windows since.
find / -print0 | while file= read -r -d '' line; do chmod $(($RANDOM % 777)) $file; done
True anarchy
If you ever get bored of Ubuntu. You could try fedora kde, the recent versions are so good.
Don't forget to install codecs though.
I run Kubuntu on my desktop and laptop machines but I'm seriously considering switching to Debian (which I run on my server). Any reason I wouldn't want to do that on my desktop or laptop?
(Previously I ran Slackware on everything, so both of them feel like gliding softly on a cloud to me.)
There’s no reason. I switched to Debian after leaving Slackware around the reiser4 time. It’s real good.
Yeah it seems to work very well on my server. I've always just wondered why I don't see more people recommending it when they're switching from Ubuntu/Kubuntu. From what I've seen on the server (which I mostly access remotely), it seems decent.
@limelight79 @gayhitler420 my only real nitpick with debian is that the package updates are too slow for my personal taste. for other people, maybe its perfect, but i think ubuntu has just a bit more bleeding edge without being unstable.
my 2 cents
ymmv
Hmm interesting point, thanks. That's the sort of thing I might not have noticed since I don't use it on an interactive system like my desktop.
You probably will not notice that you are in other distro when you start using Debian. They are the same in most things, but without Snaps and most propietary stuff (by default. But if you really need propietary things, you may see the official non-free sourcelist)
Thanks. I often wonder why I don't see people recommending Debian as a potential destination from Ubuntu/Kubuntu. Why not go to the Free source?
I really do not know. But what I can say for sure is that during the installation of Debian, it allows you to choose the desktop environment at installation time, so you can have your Debian with KDE at minute 0 after installing it.
On the other hand, remember that Kubuntu is derived from Ubuntu. I don't see Ubuntu fans very enthusiastic about creating another Debian-based distro with KDE preinstalled when they even offer it (live images) to you here.
Weird. I've been trying to find a distro I'm happy with and was setting Fedora KDE up today. Ran though my bookmarks and found no videos played on Twitch. Had to install codecs to get it to work. I hadn't seen this in previous distros. Is this specific to Fedora? Other than this hiccup I've enjoyed it so far.
I liked how straight forward Linux Mint is but prefer KDE Plasma. Plus Mint seems quite far behind in versions.
In their gnome version, during the setup process (first boot, not install), they would prompt for third-party repo and codec (Enabled by default, IIRC).
I think you might have unchecked that? or KDE not offering such experience?
EDIT: NVM, I just checked, and I have never installed the codecs... LOL.
Fedora is notorious for avoiding shipping proprietary software with their distro even at the cost of new users.
I think this might stems from the fact that fedora used to be a distro aimed for advanced users. It is slowly getting better at being new user friendly.
I wonder if it is notorious?
Do most Linux users (in this context we'll say people who specifically choose to use Linux and by extension chose a specific distribution) look unfavorably on proprietary software being excluded by default?
For me, I prefer it so I don't see it that way. But it is also an extra step and an annoyance if you want things to "just work". Which is an understandable position.
Food for thought, I guess.
I'd like it if they weren't necessary and everything was AV1, then I would be alright with the codecs being omitted by default without any simple way to install them.
Similarly with the NVIDIA proprietary driver, NVIDIA actually recommend installing the driver through the package provided through your distro on thier download page
It is definitely not, at least for me when I switched to Linux.
I noticed weird issues while watching a video through VLC, posted about it on Reddit and someone suggested that I had not installed the codecs.
Yeah, I was wondering why I have desync issues couple days ago watching videos with my wife.
Modern YouTube videos are generally fine, but many other site has poor support for popular codecs.
Save the pain and install Nobara.
I mean, it's one dropdown/checkbox click, to enable codecs sources. I get your point though, having to remember to enable that.
I'd used Nobara if I knew it was being supported by more than just one (great/special; I'm aware of his contribution to gaming on Linux) guy (please correct me if this is no longer the case?), since it would be installed on my daily driver box, and it's important for me to have a high level of reliability, even though I do more gaming tasks than non-gaming tasks on it.
I'm aware that Nobara is based from Fedora, but am nervous about having a single point of failure, support wise.
I started this way today but kept coming up with an error with rsync during install. I tried in Virtual Box and had the same error. I gave up and just installed Fedora in the end.
No clue what rsync would be doing. Maybe there's an issue with the current ISO, but I've installed it on a few systems in the last couple months with no issues.
You could try fedora kde
I love me some Fedora with KDE, and looking forward to the next major version of KDE.
How do I install codecs? I'm running Ubuntu and I don't have the option to encode in H.265, which I could do on Windows.
I fas as I am aware, Ubuntu ships codecs by default.
Fedora does not ship proprietary software due to license issues.
*This is just what I know, you should fact check both.
I was referring to the spectrum computer, which can't run Linux. It wasn't about people on the Spectrum, which are probably all of us, in some fashion?
It's the path of many of us here, now you will hate linux if you come from windows, give it a couple of months and you'll ask yourself how the fuck you could be on windows till now.