Recently switched to bluefin from workstation, I was initially a bit held back by all of the GNOME customisations, but they’re pretty straightforward to revert back to default. While I like the idea of automatic updates it would be nice if it integrated with GNOME software to make it easier to control. Otherwise if you’re looking for an immutable/atomic desktop and want it to pretty much work out of the box I would highly recommend
Yeah I use silverblue on another computer and previously on this one, but the killer feature of bluefin is that NVIDIA drivers and codecs are built right into the image (as with the other ublue images) meaning that you don’t need to layer them and risk a bad upgrade. I’m planning on bringing the other computer over as well even though it’s AMD, at least I’ll get ROCm and the codecs.
I just want to clarify as OP, I didn’t post this because I support it, I posted it because it’s stupid and just a taste of the very poor takes out there
The title was the same thing but without the "[Very bad take] " bit, I probably wouldn’t have read the description and just jumped to the comments. I don’t really care about votes though, I find comments much more interesting. If I post content I just take any votes as a review of the content, if I’ve commented my honest opinion and put some thought into the comment only to get downvotes and no comments really explaining why then I’m a bit disappointed.
I wouldn’t recommend watching it, but the central argument of this video is to do with software support. They argue that “open source” was more relevant prior to the internet (in servers?) due to the long turnaround time in getting a software vender (in this video IBM) to fix a bug in their software, arguing that by having access to the source code support could instruct the server maintainer what changes to make without them needing to send the tape to IBM to debug (apparently that was something they did, but it seems people in the video comments disagree with this hinting that the youtuber has no actual experience in this area). They argue that due to high speed internet support can release software fixes much quicker so having access to the source code isn’t useful as paying for support contracts is a better option for businesses rather than having people who understand the software they’re running. Apparently this is the only reason why open source is useful. They go on to argue that Linux is only popular on servers because RedHat’s support contracts are cheaper than Microsoft’s, something which I doubt and probably has more to do with the kernel and OS being easy to modify and control allowing it to be extended to a large variety of use cases instead of writing a new system from scratch.
There’s lots of issues with their argument and some have claimed it is trolling but I reckon that would be giving them too much credit. It is likely they are just an idiot fanboying for their favourite companies desperately trying to justify their irrational biases
It really depends alot on the situation, I do agree however, when you compare Open Source and Free Software, Open Source seems to be designed to be exploitative which is why it is supported by large companies. As you said the AGPL is really the only way to go as it means you get access to every modification a large company makes to your software, which is why the Linux kernel (albeit GPLv2, which is also a good copyleft license) has become such a big project, running on the phone I’m typing this on and the servers our Lemmy instances are on.
It’s probably not the answer to everything and FUTO are trying to fix this (probably the wrong way though) but AGPL is really the best license to avoid exploitation, that way if they use it, you get in return more source code.
Exactly, what the video fails to mention is the eventuality that the software ceases to be supported, then what? You’ve built your entire business around this piece of software and it would cost more to migrate to something else than having someone who understands the code or perhaps someone doing it for free on the internet. But with server software especially, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of this proprietary stuff ends up going SaaS only ripping off any companies that self host.
Something interesting I’d like to point out, the videogame Mindustry is open source and copyleft (I think either GPL or AGPL). You can get a build off GitHub or FlatHub completely for free. However there is a Steam version with Steam multiplayer and achievements as well which is $9.99 USD on Steam, estimated ownership is around 846.7k [1], the price hasn’t always been $9.99, but assuming that isn’t the case the game has made around $8 million, I haven’t taken out Valve’s cut and I don’t know how much tax they’re paying but that’s pretty good. It could be a lot higher if all of the FlatHub and GitHub users paid for their copy. I initially discovered the game on FlatHub, loved it and now have it on Steam. I wouldn’t have bought the game if I hadn’t tried it for free.
It feels counterintuitive that freeloaders can help with sales, but consider a physical artwork like a painting. People don’t tend to buy these things without seeing them first, and seeing it is experiencing, so there’s very little benefit to buying it, but people do anyway to support the artist, because they want more.
I’m a long time Windows user who has experience with WSL. Last year, I needed a laptop for university, and out of laziness, opted for a Macbook since, although they’re expensive as hell, are reasonably reliable....
There’s a lot of people here promoting whatever crazy niche distro they use and I’d caution against some of the options presented here. I’d recommend the following criteria when choosing a distro for development (depends on the development but I’ll assume since you’re study computer science something like Python, C/C++ where distro packages are important):
Up-to-date packages: You don’t want to come across some bug in a library that was fixed 2 years ago or miss out on the latest features or standards
Stability: You likely don’t want to rewrite your code to account for a major library update immediately because otherwise your code won’t run - it also makes it easier to share with other people as you can target a specific OS
QA: Possibly having maintainers that keep an eye on bugs and packaging mismatches to create a coherent system is one of the greatest features of the Linux desktop. For example I had an Arch update stuff me around for an update where the maintainer of the CUDA toolkit package did a major upgrade without any coordination with the maintainer of the proprietary nvidia driver package, making CUDA unusable.
Here’s a quick list of how distros fit these criteria:
Arch: (1)
Debian 12: (2, 3)
Linux Mint: (2, 3)
Ubuntu LTS: (2, 3)
Ubuntu 24.04: (2, 3) - Some packages weren’t updated to their latest versions like KDE Plasma
Fedora Workstation 40: (1, 2, 3)
Fedora Silverblue 40: (1, 2, 3+) - My personal choice however, it’s a bit different from normal distros, see below
NixOS: (1, 2) - You can define specific package versions but with the large repos I doubt there is much QA going on
Debian Sid: (1) - This is the development branch of Debian
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed: (1, 2, 3+) - Very advanced automated testing
Void Linux: (1, 2, 3-) - Claim to be stable rolling release, updates come slowly after some testing
Note on atomic distros and toolboxes/distroboxes:
I personally use Fedora Silverblue with a few distroboxes (basically docker containers you can interact with) for development (Fedora) and Steam (bazzite-arch-gnome).
With an Atomic distro the root filesystem is not mutable - you don’t generally install packages there but setup an aforementioned container and install you’re environment in there.
toolboxes and distroboxes are usable on any distro so your desktop environment and any applications like Steam, Firefox, etc. are able to be updated to a different cycle/philosophy to your development tools.
The main advantages of an atomic distro are:
Fast updates that you download while the system is running and on next boot you will immediately be in the updated environment (no need to wait for updates to apply);
Everyone runs the same configuration (or very close to) which is why I gave Fedora Silverblue a + in the QA category. This means you are less likely to come across rare configuration issues which are difficult to test (i.e. there is less entropy in the system)
The main drawbacks however:
It’s a relatively new paradigm on the Linux desktop (despite being basically what Android does) so there’s not as many people using Fedora Silverblue as Fedora Workstation.
Desktop environments:
On MacOS and Windows you only get one choice as to how the desktop looks and feels, here we have a few choices:
GNOME - the most popular choice and is the default for most major distros, with strong backing from major players like Red Hat. It implements a completely new way to interact with your computer borrowing behaviour from both Windows and MacOS. While not terribly customisable (at least not through settings, extensions can do pretty much anything), it’s generally not necessary if you just want to focus and get stuff done
KDE Plasma: probably the second most popular choice, while not the default for the major distros there are versions like Kubuntu (Ubuntu), Fedora KDE Spin (Fedora Workstation) and Fedora Kinoite (Fedora Silverblue) which implement it. By default Plasma has a Windows like behaviour however it is customisable to behave pretty much however you see fit.
Cinnamon: Not as popular - used by Linux Mint to provide a familiar experience to migrating Windows users.
XFCE: Also not as popular but is a good lightweight option
Tiling Window managers - not a full dekstop environment like you would expect from the other options but provide a unique keyboard-based workflow making use of virtual desktops/workspaces and window tiling rather than floating windows.
I hope this comment is helpful for you, and the choices are really overwhelming - but worth it, and I’d recommend playing around with whatever you’ve got time to do to find what works best for you. If you’re planning on running on an Apple Silicon based device most of these distro options are unavailable, I’d recommend looking into Asahi Linux based distros - don’t use Manjaro as they aren’t endorsed by the Asahi project
I’ve never actually used NixOS (I did use Nix once to save my ass on Arch because of the aforementioned CUDA thing which I will not let go), but my reasoning for it not having as good QA as Fedora Atomic Desktops is the large number of possible configurations to test for, as well as testing GUI programs. But I understand the way the project is being developed and designed with things like flakes there is certainly potential for much more stringent QA, however, it still feels a bit like an “in development” thing that’s probably not at the stage where users can expect to use it without coming across things they can’t do etc. (Not that Silverblue doesn’t have that).
Absolutely could be the case with things with specific tasks. It’s always a good idea to share what your development environment is so others can replicate and if they’re using something a bit different they probably know what they’re doing anyway
It’s free software so you can get rid of it if you want. It’s not really for the users of a free software project to dictate the direction the project should take, perhaps unless they have made substantial contributions
Pricing doesn’t look that bad $2.99/month for 250GB ($0.01196/GB) but bit of a jump to $14.99/month for 2TB ($0.007495/GB), real lack of middle ground there though. I think it is US dollars (hate how websites don’t tell you). Since Audacity is open source it should be possible to create an identical API to the audio.com one for custom storage.
Maybe they store the tracks in an uncompressed format to preserve quality. But you’d probably want to only use it for active projects to avoid the hike. Though there is potentially a conflict of interest there - as with any project that offers cloud storage. You’d have to see if a patch to reduce the file size would be accepted or not
From reading the letter it seemed that they were more concerned with the lead developer’s conflict of interest with said defense company as their company, Determinant Systems, may or may not work with them. They can’t say due to an NDA which implies that they do work with them.
I’m not terribly concerned over the ethics of the defense contractor, what I took away from the article is that Eelco develops some competing products for nix which are proprietary and leads the nix project. Massive conflict of interest he refused to address. Furthermore, his behaviour in the community isn’t very good - you could argue “But that doesn’t matter, what matters is that he writes good code”, however you would miss the point. Such behaviour has the potential to alienate current and future contributors - what open source projects need to keep going.
I’m working on a some materials for a class wherein I’ll be teaching some young, wide-eyed Windows nerds about Linux and we’re including a section we’re calling “foot guns”. Basically it’s ways you might shoot yourself in the foot while meddling with your newfound Linux powers....
The only game I have ever played is FIFA on a PS4. Now I have a gaming laptop but have no idea how I should go about playing games on Linux. Appreciate your help in advance!
Beyond All Reason was recently recommended to me in an ask Lemmy Thread. Can confirm it is a great game if you’re into real time strategy (Free and Open Source). Naev and Endless Sky - Single player 2D open world space exploration, trading with some interesting storylines (Both are also FOSS and inspired heavily by the Escape Velocity series of games), I have spent ma y hours playing these games. Mindustry is another fun one people are recommending, takes elements of Factory Building games and Real Time Strategy (FOSS).
Venturing into the non-foss side of things, most games seem to work, check protondb before purchasing for Linux compatiblility. Steam is pretty good on Linux. I’ve found Terraria to be quite addictive which natively supports Linux. Starbound is also pretty good but I haven’t touched it for a few years because the storyline is rather a cliche and just not interesting at all to me (I did finish it).
Another option for games is emulation.
If your gaming laptop has an NVIDIA GPU as well as integrated (usually Intel) you may need to launch your games with certain environment variables incase they default to the integrated graphics. In my experience with hybrid graphics Wayland works quite well as the desktop will be run on the integrated graphics.
Creating a film or TV about a well known video game franchise is a safe bet for film companies as they don’t need to get the audience interested in a new story, just re use an old one that already has some fans who’ll just have to watch it. Probably helps the videogame publisher as well, especially if the film leaves you wanting more
It seems like the FOSS community is continuing to grow, and FOSS apps keep getting better (Immich reallh blew my mind recently), which is a big win 😎 but there are still many apps I use that I would kill for an open source alternative. I am curious what you guys think? Are there any apps you’d love alternatives for?
Naev is another good one. I made a post a few weeks ago on one of the ask Lemmy communities asking about favourite open source games. Lots of good stuff came out of that post. Here’s a link to it for your instance lemmy.world/post/13444739
This is where I see atomic distros like Silverblue becoming the new way to get reliable systems, and up to date packages. Because the base system is standardised there can be a lot more QA as there is alot less entropy in the installed system. Plus free rollbacks if something goes wrong. You don’t get that by default on Debian.
Distrobox can be used to install other programs (including GUI apps), I currently run Steam in a distrobox container on Silverblue and vscode with all of my development stuff in another one. And of course use flatpaks from FlatHub where I can, these are more stable than distro packages imo (when official) as the developers are developing for a single target with defined library versions. Not whatever ancient version Debian has or the latest which appeared on Arch very soon after release.
I’ve tried Debian a couple of times but it’s just too out of date. I like new stuff and when developing stuff I need new stuff and it’s not good enough to just install the development/unsupported versions of Debian. It’s probably great for servers, but I think atomic distros will be taking over that space as well, eventually.
It looks pretty good, I’ve been planning on installing it on another computer for use as a media centre. Probably wouldn’t use it as my main image as I’m not a huge fan of their customised GNOME experience (I quite like vanilla GNOME with maybe a system tray extension). But I must admit watching some of the videos by the creator of Bazzite and ublue got me interested in this atomic desktop thing again
It’s just a podman/docker container. I’m pretty sure it is unprivileged (you don’t need root). I’ve tried it on both NVIDIA (RTX 3050 Mobile) and AMD (Radeon RX Vega 56) and setting up the distrobox through BoxBuddy (a nice GUI app that makes management easy) I didn’t need to do anything to get the graphics drivers working. I only mentioned BoxBuddy because I haven’t set one up from the command line so I don’t know if it does any initial set up. I haven’t noticed any performance issues (yet).
You say that yet I have contributed to open source software. They are allowed to do what they want with it for free but from a moral sense they should contribute back to projects that they benefit from.
Hello, I wanna know which distro could be could for productivity (not gaming). Maybe a debian based one, I don’t know and I don’t care about the desktop env. Thx!
Fedora is pretty good if you want a more up to date experience. Fedora Silverblue if you want fast atomic updates and just want to run flatpaks (or use a toolbox/distrobox for traditional packages or even overlay them completely). Otherwise Ubuntu has always felt like a very complete experience, just don’t get crypto wallets from the snap store.
I think they’re targeting people who want to get stuff done. I don’t want to remember the icon for every application I use, I just search or I click on the window I want. Not a waste of screen space at the bottom, just a thin strip of basic stuff so I can focus on the task at hand. Yes KDE is supposedly easier to customise but that’s a requirement given it’s fugly out of the box
What are you trying to run it on? An Arduino? I haven’t tried it on a raspberry pi but I’ve never had an issue with performance on GNOME and I don’t have the latest hardware
Whenever I have to use Windows it’s in front of other people an I swear they all think I’m an idiot when move the cursor to the top left and wait for something to happen only to experience disappointment
They like to complain about the memory usage on startup. Because it caches a lot of applications for fast loading. It will clear them when required. The more memory you have the more it will use. My laptop has 16gb it uses around 3gb on fresh boot with Fedora 39 and GNOME, I recently upgraded a 10 year old workstation to 64gb (because it was cheap) and with Fedora Silverblue 39 it uses a bit more memory on startup. Unused memory is wasted memory.
No thanks. Lol. How many backdoors exist in Windows because we don’t see the source? And if something is found they’ll probably keep quiet about it. Happy April Fools’ a whole day dedicated to people like you
It makes it obvious to people whether they are downloading Google Chrome as packaged by Google or as by someone else. That being said, Google Chrome is malware. That being said there is a lot more that needs to be done to truly prevent malware, which will be costly but will hopefully take effect when they’ve got the budget for it
New Bluefin image variant, zst:chunked compression, weekly updates (www.youtube.com)
[Very bad take] Why open source are not that important (servers and IT) (www.youtube.com)
Personally I believe this is a very poor take
Ultrakill dev says it's fine to pirate his game if you don't have money to spare: 'Culture shouldn't exist only for those who can afford it' (www.pcgamer.com)
What open-source software would you like more people to know about?
Moving to a Linux distro for dev
I’m a long time Windows user who has experience with WSL. Last year, I needed a laptop for university, and out of laziness, opted for a Macbook since, although they’re expensive as hell, are reasonably reliable....
it is what it is (lemmy.world)
Audacity 3.5 Released with Cloud Saving, Beat Detection, Pitch Shifting, and More (9to5linux.com)
open letter to the NixOS foundation (save-nix-together.org)
chaos.social/
What're some of the dumbest things you've done to yourself in Linux?
I’m working on a some materials for a class wherein I’ll be teaching some young, wide-eyed Windows nerds about Linux and we’re including a section we’re calling “foot guns”. Basically it’s ways you might shoot yourself in the foot while meddling with your newfound Linux powers....
I've never played games. Suggest a couple of addictive games I can play on Linux
The only game I have ever played is FIFA on a PS4. Now I have a gaming laptop but have no idea how I should go about playing games on Linux. Appreciate your help in advance!
Just finished binging the Fallout show, would recommend (lemmy.world)
What apps would you love to have open-source alternatives for?
It seems like the FOSS community is continuing to grow, and FOSS apps keep getting better (Immich reallh blew my mind recently), which is a big win 😎 but there are still many apps I use that I would kill for an open source alternative. I am curious what you guys think? Are there any apps you’d love alternatives for?
Noob Question Thread: Ask Any Questions About Linux!
I thought I’ll make this thread for all of you out there who have questions but are afraid to ask them. This is your chance!...
Sinister $3 life-or-death indie horror game [Buckshot Roulette] shoots up Steam charts with 96% rating at launch (www.pcgamesn.com)
…it uses Godot Engine.
Linux distros recommandations
Hello, I wanna know which distro could be could for productivity (not gaming). Maybe a debian based one, I don’t know and I don’t care about the desktop env. Thx!
Fwupd Will Use Zstd Compression (9to5linux.com)
Linux Firmware Update Utility Fwupd Will Use Zstd Compression for Future Releases...
Fedora proposal to change default desktop to KDE (fedoraproject.org)
WARNING: Malicious code in current pre-release & testing versions/variants: F40 and rawhide affected - users of F40/rawhide need to respond (discussion.fedoraproject.org)
backdoor in upstream xz/liblzma leading to ssh server compromise (www.openwall.com)
Flathub now marks unverified apps (lemmy.ml)
rule (lemmy.cafe)
FAQ...