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I don't think I meant that, although it might sound like it. I think you're accusing me of the fallacy of all or nothing, but to me the original argument sounds

I don't think I meant that, although it might sound like it. I think you're accusing me of the fallacy of all or nothing, but to me the original argument sounds like an obsession with purity, but clearly one line isn't enough to explain that. The replies to my original post seem to me to be arguing for 100% transparency from the keyboard to the atoms on the finfets. I don't think I'm strawmanning that (maybe hyperbolizing a little, but with RISC-V proponents, maybe not!) That sounds like a noble goal, like world peace, ending starvation, and curing all modern ails. However, the extent to which tribalism and out-grouping emerges from people who don't use the "superior, pure" solution is nonsense: just look at the tone of the first post, snidely declaring that this is proof apple is again such a bad solution. That's not helpful, and after hearing similar tech arguments for nearly 35 years online, it is tiresome (ironic). On top of that, the dream of transparency seems unlikely because every open source hardware project I've ever seen has failed [1], there is zero motivation for it. Again, not to say it isn't a noble goal, but don't fetishize it to the point of outgrouping others. [1] This is a broad statement, as there is plenty of gadgetry that is open source hardware. I mean: open source hardware for Linux laptops. Or at least hardware that has open source drivers but doesn't have an "Appendix H".

TremendousJudge 5y ago
Thanks for elaborating. I agree with what you just said, a high level of snobbery won't fix anything, and expecting everything to be "pure" is utopian. That being said, I think that the original commenter was just expressing his frustration at the fact that "tech minded" people continue to buy into Apples ecosystems and then observing the behaviour as though they didn't own their stuff. In a way, not dissimilar to your point elsewhere about how people complain about Nvidia drivers but keep buying their hardware.
mst 5y ago
Everything is about trade-offs. Since I can't meaningfully audit kernel level stuff anyway (not my area) I mostly care whether it works for me (or for the production purpose the customer needs or etc.) and that's not an ideal world but I choose to prioritise open source userspace contributions and running code. I also run windows 10 on a Thinkpad Helix 2 for my personal machine - with WSL to provide me an X11 environment that I use to ssh to the debian/freebsd/<whatever the customer runs> machines I'm actually doing development work on. I like writing server side code (and tolerate writing browser side code) so being a linux desktop admin would involve a whole extra field of expertise that wouldn't gain me anything, and I'd rather spend the required learning time on writing and publishing more code instead. Other people are entirely welcome to choose entirely different trade-offs, of course, but this particular attitude works for me. Edit: Ironically, my one foray into OS X ended because Aqua insisted on reaching into my X11 instance and controlling focus, which completely trashed my fvwm2 FocusFollowsMouse setup in terms of usability for me, so I decided the Microsoft black box was a better trade-off than an Apple black box even though in those days I had to have cygwin for my X11 + ssh setup.
- gotaquestion 5y ago
  It certainly is. I have Ubuntu 20.04 running on a Multiboot Yoga, an old Dell, and a MacBook Pro 2013 (because this is the only OS that will boot). I use both the default Gnome desktop, and sometimes switch to FVWM2 or MWM (mostly on VNC because I hate all the bells-and-whistles on Gnome). I hate using Linux on the actual laptop. The touchpad is always a trainwreck. Sensitivity and scroll speed/acceleration is infuriating (too much Xorg config hassle). Trying to get "middle click" working -always- has issues. Power buttons never work properly, same with LidClose actions (i've read many knowledge bases and stackoverflow posts, none seem to work for my particular hardware, as is always the case). It is frustrating as hell to get it to act like a well-behaved "normal" laptop. Don't get me started on suspend/hibernate issues, or the flaky bluetooth drivers that always need system ctl restart command line help. Now that I've made the tradeoff to not use Linux as anything but a remote server via VNC, my choices are Windows or Mac for a primary computer. I don't like ads showing up in start menu, or idiotic MFA and login requirements, so I'm left with Mac.
  - mst 5y ago
    If I was using full-screen VNC I'd probably not mind MacOS in theory. But I don't get on with touchpads (the apple ones are absolutely superior to anybody else's but it's just not my thing) and my wrists -really- don't get on with mice these days, so a trackpoint is pretty essential to my comfort. Happily, I see the start menu sufficiently rarely that any presence of ads doesn't even register to me, and the login stuff is basically "meh" since it's (so far) stayed out of my way sufficiently for me not to care. But that's my choice of trade-offs - may you have great joy out of yours :D

TremendousJudge 5y ago

Thanks for elaborating. I agree with what you just said, a high level of snobbery won't fix anything, and expecting everything to be "pure" is utopian. That being said, I think that the original commenter was just expressing his frustration at the fact that "tech minded" people continue to buy into Apples ecosystems and then observing the behaviour as though they didn't own their stuff. In a way, not dissimilar to your point elsewhere about how people complain about Nvidia drivers but keep buying their hardware.

mst 5y ago

Everything is about trade-offs. Since I can't meaningfully audit kernel level stuff anyway (not my area) I mostly care whether it works for me (or for the production purpose the customer needs or etc.) and that's not an ideal world but I choose to prioritise open source userspace contributions and running code. I also run windows 10 on a Thinkpad Helix 2 for my personal machine - with WSL to provide me an X11 environment that I use to ssh to the debian/freebsd/<whatever the customer runs> machines I'm actually doing development work on. I like writing server side code (and tolerate writing browser side code) so being a linux desktop admin would involve a whole extra field of expertise that wouldn't gain me anything, and I'd rather spend the required learning time on writing and publishing more code instead. Other people are entirely welcome to choose entirely different trade-offs, of course, but this particular attitude works for me. Edit: Ironically, my one foray into OS X ended because Aqua insisted on reaching into my X11 instance and controlling focus, which completely trashed my fvwm2 FocusFollowsMouse setup in terms of usability for me, so I decided the Microsoft black box was a better trade-off than an Apple black box even though in those days I had to have cygwin for my X11 + ssh setup.

gotaquestion 5y ago
It certainly is. I have Ubuntu 20.04 running on a Multiboot Yoga, an old Dell, and a MacBook Pro 2013 (because this is the only OS that will boot). I use both the default Gnome desktop, and sometimes switch to FVWM2 or MWM (mostly on VNC because I hate all the bells-and-whistles on Gnome). I hate using Linux on the actual laptop. The touchpad is always a trainwreck. Sensitivity and scroll speed/acceleration is infuriating (too much Xorg config hassle). Trying to get "middle click" working -always- has issues. Power buttons never work properly, same with LidClose actions (i've read many knowledge bases and stackoverflow posts, none seem to work for my particular hardware, as is always the case). It is frustrating as hell to get it to act like a well-behaved "normal" laptop. Don't get me started on suspend/hibernate issues, or the flaky bluetooth drivers that always need system ctl restart command line help. Now that I've made the tradeoff to not use Linux as anything but a remote server via VNC, my choices are Windows or Mac for a primary computer. I don't like ads showing up in start menu, or idiotic MFA and login requirements, so I'm left with Mac.
- mst 5y ago
  If I was using full-screen VNC I'd probably not mind MacOS in theory. But I don't get on with touchpads (the apple ones are absolutely superior to anybody else's but it's just not my thing) and my wrists -really- don't get on with mice these days, so a trackpoint is pretty essential to my comfort. Happily, I see the start menu sufficiently rarely that any presence of ads doesn't even register to me, and the login stuff is basically "meh" since it's (so far) stayed out of my way sufficiently for me not to care. But that's my choice of trade-offs - may you have great joy out of yours :D