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> the concept of requiring a workaround because my geaphics drivers aren't functional is something I cannot understand It's not a workaround, it's just a perk,
by tomxor 3y ago
> the concept of requiring a workaround because my geaphics drivers aren't functional is something I cannot understand
It's not a workaround, it's just a perk, when I moved to "ultra customized" as you put it, you don't want to have to configure masses of stuff, i3wm is good for this, it's pretty minimal to configure... an XDM was just more work to configure, but with little utility from my perspective, also I work on the cli a lot so it doesn't feel unnatural to be welcomed by a tty.
And yeah the final perk, Linux wasn't always so compatible, and even in more recent history nVidia graphics drivers can still be problematic. About 10 years ago i think, I used Linux on a 2008 MBP, and freeBSD actually, those things had craptastic nVidia GPUs, you know the batch that came with the first gen unleaded soldier fiasco and when nVidia lied to apple about their thermal specs before they had a falling out and everyone got their GPUs underclocked in firmware to push failures out of warrantee - i digress - anyway the linux support for any nvidia stuff back then was terrible, and very flimsy on dual GPU laptops. For Apple it was more tricky still because you needed to write an Apple specific gmux switcher before even attempting to boot with the nvidia driver, and if that actually worked when you start X then you would lose visual access to your tty because it had no modsetting support... which ironically made using tty instead of an xdm a disadvantage for when the graphics driver failed once in X... I sometimes tried to bring it back to life essentially blindfolded on the tty if X died, mixed success.
Point is, on any laptop with nvidia back then, you usually had to do some level of mucking around on the tty anyway before being able to depend on anything graphical like an xdm... and pray it doesn't break on the next driver update. Frankly right now, we are living in Linux utopia, a lot of hardware "just works".
- maccard 3y agoReading this makes me think two things: 1) This sort of nonsense is why people don't use these environments and 2) Just because something worked like that 15 years ago, doesn't mean it's a good reason to still do that now. I cannot fathom how _anyone_ would tolerate that in a world where Windows and MacOS (and I guess to a certain extent various linux flavors) exist and "just work", for anything other than tinkering.
- tomxor 3y agoIt's subjective, tty "just works" for me, not you. Just because mac and windows "just works" for you doesn't mean that's true for everyone else's purposes, it certainly isn't for me, they create immense friction for me. More is not universally better, there is no functional difference for me starting X via an xdm vs a tty, and as a bonus there is less complexity and _less_ for me to setup... so why would I bother installing one to gain nothing. That doesn't mean I would force everyone to learn how to use a cli and assume this method is appropriate for everyone.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago> in a world where Windows and MacOS (and I guess to a certain extent various linux flavors) exist and "just work", Lol, I've seen how reliably Windows "works"; I'll stick with Linux, thanks. At least FOSS OS always let me find a fix or work around. Granted, I mostly see it these days when relatives ask for help so the sample is biased, but that seems fair considering the conversation here.
- earthling8118 3y agoWindows doesn't "just work" but rather I used to regularly have more issues using it. No thanks. I was also graced with having an nvidia gpu which routinely caused trouble. Now I just don't have a gpu as it is too much trouble to deal with them.
- znpy 3y agoI remember those times, had the unpleasant experience of having nvidia graphics on my laptops in the past. It’s been almost ten years now, and i just stay away from nvidia hardware. If a laptoo has an nvidia gpu I’ll look for something else (I don’t care about noveau, if I’m spending money I might as well buy something that just works).
- tomxor 3y agoSame here. I think support has become a little better but the attitude is pretty much the same, I just stick to Intel and AMD now. Thankfully there is also way more officially supported hardware these days too.