Nefyedardu

Games are the only software I purchase these days

Is there anything stopping something like connecting your credit card to GNOME Software Manager and then putting a big fat “donate” button next to the “install” button? I imagine there are legal considerations.

All you do is update your current system, change your repo sources to whatever branch you want, then do a full-upgrade. For branches there is stable, testing, and unstable (called sid). They don’t recommend you use sid for everyday use, things can be buggy (currently sid is on GNOME 44 at any rate). Instructions

Do you just look for things to get mad at? This hasn’t even been implemented yet. Even if it had, it would be opt-in. And even if you opt-in, the data is all anonymous and you would be able to see exactly the data that gets sent out. If Fedora or anyone else really wanted to spy on you, I assure you they wouldn’t let you know beforehand.

going into a menu on windows to change some settings once is a bridge too fucking far

“Once”. Yeah right.

Yeah I just use the web version of Office on the rare chance I need it, which is almost never.

Most desktop environments are really efficient at what they do and minimize the background resources they take. Just checked my system and GNOME takes ~350MBs RAM (~700MB including gnome-software) and literally 0.0% CPU, it’s insane. I looked up Windows 11 and it seems like it can use up to 4 GBs (!) of RAM all by itself.

I’ve had a lot of issues with archinstall in the past as well, doesn’t surprise me that it wouldn’t set your network clock correctly

“Patchwork” sounds like a good way to describe Windows as well. Or at least it was when I was a Windows 10 sysadmin and there were two different settings menus to do everything.

lol why are you such a dick? That last comment was me politely trying to end this convo on good terms. What is this pissing contest all of a sudden?

All I ever hear about is how bad Linux users are, then I run into someone like you who is just insufferable because… Why? Someone uses different software than you? What are you, a fucking child? Who cares. Congratulations, a trillion dollar corporation with endless funds made an operating system that can run Photoshop or something. And my distro that is run by volunteers through sheer passion for free software doesn’t. Awesome. I don’t use Photoshop.

What’s wrong with monopolies?
Why should I value my privacy?
Why should I use code that is open and freely auditable instead of closed and proprietary?
Why should I have more ownership of my computer?

These are the questions you are essentially asking, and while I could write a whole treatise on it I doubt you would change your mind anyway. Enjoy using Windows.

Why should software companies release a Linus version of a piece of software?

It isn’t about supporting Linux, it’s about supporting the hardware that comes with it on it. The Steam Deck demonstrates plainly that good hardware with Linux on it will receive dev attention. Game developers now talk and brag about “Steam Deck support” (which is actually just Linux support) for every major game release. It’s not an “excuse”, pre-installed Linux does work.

Most don’t bother with MacOS and they own about 20% of the desktop market. Linux is just 3%.

I have a hard time believing MacOS is even close to 20%. Hell on Steam Linux users outnumber Mac and the gaming demographic is lower on Linux to begin with. And lack of Mac software support is pretty obviously a result of them (fairly) recently dropping the x86 architecture, so companies have to remake a lot of software for them and it’s not easy.

I don’t see you proposing any solutions to this problem. So your opinion is Linux just doomed forever? Microsoft owns this market and that’s it, competition isn’t possible and the world has to use their closed source operating system for the rest of time?

And how does Linux get software? I was discussing that two comments ago, we’ve now come full circle.

They would for the same reason they use Linux on their Chromebooks, Android phones, Pixel watches, Steam Decks or TrueNAS server. It’s pre-installed. Why do you think that argument is an “excuse” is my question.

If anybody is so clueless about Linux that they need to take a quiz like this, they should probably just use something easy like Mint or Ubuntu.

Ubuntu LTS is generally used for servers, but if you are going to game on it you should consider using a container such as flatpak. It will share a kernel with your host OS (so if you need a newer kernel you are out of luck) but will be packaged with a newer version of Mesa. Installing drivers outside of the official repos can be a PITA because you often have to re-do everything when you upgrade your OS.

edit: should mention flatpak won’t make your OS work itself. You’ll need a newer distro for that. Ubuntu only gets major software updates for six months until the next release, everything after is minor adjustments like security updates and bug fixes.

Flatpak doesn’t run the latest stuff typically. Like I’m on Mesa 23.1.4 on Flatpak and 23.1.6 on Fedora. Probably newer than what Ubuntu has though.

What would it take for Linux to run all the hardware and software it needs? Companies need to make develop for Linux. In order for that to happen, Linux needs market share to make it profitable for them. But in order for Linux to gain market share, it needs to run all the hardware and software it needs. So in other words in order to get market share, Linux needs market share. How does it do that without being preinstalled on devices?

It all depends on your hardware. If you run standard hardware with an AMD card, all the drivers you need should (theoretically) be in the kernel and will magically just work. As soon as you start using running hardware with proprietary drivers then you have to put in a little effort. Might require you to install separate package(s) from a third-party repo or something, and that will require terminal. It’s just three commands usually: add the repo -> update your package manager -> install the driver. Not hard but if you are used to the Windows way of doing things it can be intimidating.

Even still, some stuff just doesn’t have Linux support at all or it’s completely community-maintained. If every company just open sourced their drivers and did things the “Linux” way then there would be no issue but unfortunately Linux doesn’t have the market share for those companies to care. So you get into the negative feedback loop of: Linux has low market share because of lack of support, and companies don’t support Linux because of low market share.

Linus’ brand of assholery extends to cussing out some of his colleagues via email when they did something stupid, sometimes. It’s not even remotely comparable to Steve Jobs (horrible treatment of his daughter) and Bill Gates (EEE strategy, monopolistic practices).