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I feel the author's grief over lack of time, but it has lead me to very different solutions. All around the idea of the OS should not interrupt, should not chan

I feel the author's grief over lack of time, but it has lead me to very different solutions. All around the idea of the OS should not interrupt, should not change rapidly, and my interaction with programs should not be much different from OS to OS. At work, I opted for a mac due to how terrible the windows options were. But macos itself fought me all the way so the way to be happy at work was to replace finder, to replace the dock with a taskbar, and to rebind the keys, so that everything acted like linux/windows so that I can get my job done without falling in love with apple. To me that was simplicity - the simplicity of not having to relearn for no reason. At home, I no longer dual-boot because I vm. Now Linux and Windows cooperate. And the linux got less exotic. Debian: something I can trust, that gets out of my way, and changes slowly. But I'm also loving the truenas system I set up because it and freebsd take that simplicity to the next level. In both places, unix tools that go with me, so I am in my natural place everywhere. Basically, tmux, emacs, fzf, eza, and a bash/zsh config.

DoingIsLearning 2y ago
> Debian: something I can trust, that gets out of my way, and changes slowly. Wholeheartedly agree. Debian has won the distro wars in my opinion. Their massive effort in safety and not breaking things means I can use stable as a "it just works" tool and focus on my actual work/fun.
- dmz73 2y ago
  Unfortunately, Debian is like Linux on desktop, always 80% there. You just cannot trust that plain Debian will get it right, even if it works that one time you install it. Two most recent issues that made me change to something else: 1) VLC in Debian is modified so it cannot play RTSP streams so you cannot watch video from your security camera. Windows VLC wroks. Flatpak VLC works. 2) Debian kernel update in point release broke NVIDIA driver so you cannot even see your desktop. Debian STABLE is just Linux kernel with old software. If it doesn't work now then it will definitely not work for next 2 years and if it does work now it can break at any time. All other Linux distros are not much better. Every update has 50% chance of breaking some software from distro repository but at least other distros fix their f-ups faster than Debian.
  - anthk 2y ago
    Debian and Devuan and OFC by proxy GNUinos has backports. Probably a newer VLC has been backported wit the bundled compile flags. If not, run apt-get build dep vlc, apt-src the package, make the changes and debuild it.
  - tracker1 2y ago
    I've been pretty happy with Pop (downstream from Debian/Ubuntu) myself. Not sure why it doesn't get much love compared to say Mint.
    - skydhash 2y ago
      Linux Mint is basically what Windows should have been. An OS for productive use. Defaults are good enough that you’re almost never tempted to change them. Just install your software and do work. XP (SP3?) was it and Win7 was it too. Everything after that is fighting against you. macOS is close too, but there’s a couple of painful points. Some basic windows management (solved by rectangle), iCloud doing too many things, and too much locking down for “security”.
      - tracker1 2y ago
        I realize this... I was suggesting that Pop is every bit as ready to use as Mint.
        lproven 2y ago
        How long have you got? • The tiling is clunky, and underneath it's still GNOME, my #1 most hated Linux desktop. • systemd-boot is clunky, does not play well with others, does not dual boot well at all, and it needs a huge ESP yet does not supply tooling to resize the ESP -- and Gparted can't resize FAT32 partitions as small as the typical ESP. • It replaces Snap with Flatpak, which is not an improvement in any meaningful way: the only advocates who bleat that it's more open don't understand what the word means, and architecturally, OStree is a Lovecraftian horror. • The installer is poor and could not handle using an existing `/home` partition when I first tried it (although that did get fixed). It is co-developed with Elementary, which is remarkable because the Elementary one worked better. They'd be better off learning what openness really means and working with Calamares instead. • In summary, it shows many of the defects you'd expect from a distro designed by a hardware manufacturer: poor installation, poor handling of dual boot, poor handling of existing partitions, and poor handling of being put on an existing machine, especially an older one. I find its advocates don't dual boot, don't use older kit, don't do complex partitioning, and so don't notice its defects and are unmoved because the problems do not affect them. Gracefully handling interop and existing tech is one of the things Linux does best, far better than the BSDs for instance, and it is exactly where Pop OS falls down.
- yellowapple 2y ago
  Funny enough, I argue the exact same thing... about openSUSE.
srazzaque 2y ago
> At home, I no longer dual-boot because I vm. Curious, do you have a Windows host and Linux guest(s)? Or the other way around? I currently have Linux as my primary with a Windows guest OS for when I need it (e.g. Office - I actually think Excel is great - or if I'm doing any Win32/C++ dev). But, I'm thinking of doing it the other way around on my next PC.
- bitsandboots 2y ago
  Windows host, because I play VR games and GPU passthrough would be inconvenient. I just fullscreen the linux VM and it feels native for all the non-3D tasks I do with it. Even media viewing is a breeze.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    My experience has been that Linux is significantly more stable under a VM on Windows or Mac than directly on all but the most conservative hardware. Fewer weird multimedia glitches, no needing to involve any part of the Linux wireless stack of any kind (Bluetooth especially, but also WiFi), fewer video driver issues, fewer program or windowing system crashes.
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      Because the virtual hardware is a more stable surface, than the plethora of hardware Linux is supposed to run on. That is what I have been doing since hardware virtualization became mainstream.
      - skydhash 2y ago
        Currently doing the same with macOS as the host. Still have the nice apps but with a better dev platform.
        rewgs 2y ago
        Doing the same thing, it's fantastic.
DEADMINCE 2y ago
> replace finder, to replace the dock with a taskbar, and to rebind the keys, so that everything acted like linux/windows What apps did you use to accomplish this?
m3047 2y ago
In Mac vs Windows I'm Mac for $reasons. That said my personal daily driver is desktop (not laptop) Linux. I've used primarily Macs at work for several decades; that said, my work focuses on systems running primarily Linux these days, and occasionally BSD or in the distant past VMS (once in a while some embedded stuff). I run Linux in a VM on my personal laptop so that I can run KDE desktop apps in the native Mac windowing environment (X forwarding). Working for a threat mitigation company, I built KDE actual with Brew on my company-issued Macbook. Admittedly that was masochism. We didn't use Brew for anything; we didn't do any development at all on our laptops. Fast forward. I transferred to the threat intel team; we did some work in VMs on our laptops, still no Brew. We got bought. New overlords wanted to swap spit / infect themselves with that threaty DNA so loaned me to their prod team. They did all their development in Brew, and deployed to cloudy Linux. They said "use Brew, be like us" and I said no way I am doing that, because my laptop touches bad shit; everything needs to be isolated; loan me a different laptop. But no can do. So I used the devops runbook (and submitted edits!) to build the deployment environment in VMs on my laptop. Prod didn't take kindly to this and threw me back. Left shortly thereafter for $reasons. But not before I made a runbook for the threat team. Some months later heard through the grapevine that the threat team had been tasked with red teaming the actual deployed system which prod was responsible for and that the pwnage was epic. The moral is obvious: your security team shouldn't be the only team eating dog food.

DoingIsLearning 2y ago

> Debian: something I can trust, that gets out of my way, and changes slowly. Wholeheartedly agree. Debian has won the distro wars in my opinion. Their massive effort in safety and not breaking things means I can use stable as a "it just works" tool and focus on my actual work/fun.

dmz73 2y ago
Unfortunately, Debian is like Linux on desktop, always 80% there. You just cannot trust that plain Debian will get it right, even if it works that one time you install it. Two most recent issues that made me change to something else: 1) VLC in Debian is modified so it cannot play RTSP streams so you cannot watch video from your security camera. Windows VLC wroks. Flatpak VLC works. 2) Debian kernel update in point release broke NVIDIA driver so you cannot even see your desktop. Debian STABLE is just Linux kernel with old software. If it doesn't work now then it will definitely not work for next 2 years and if it does work now it can break at any time. All other Linux distros are not much better. Every update has 50% chance of breaking some software from distro repository but at least other distros fix their f-ups faster than Debian.
- anthk 2y ago
  Debian and Devuan and OFC by proxy GNUinos has backports. Probably a newer VLC has been backported wit the bundled compile flags. If not, run apt-get build dep vlc, apt-src the package, make the changes and debuild it.
- tracker1 2y ago
  I've been pretty happy with Pop (downstream from Debian/Ubuntu) myself. Not sure why it doesn't get much love compared to say Mint.
  - skydhash 2y ago
    Linux Mint is basically what Windows should have been. An OS for productive use. Defaults are good enough that you’re almost never tempted to change them. Just install your software and do work. XP (SP3?) was it and Win7 was it too. Everything after that is fighting against you. macOS is close too, but there’s a couple of painful points. Some basic windows management (solved by rectangle), iCloud doing too many things, and too much locking down for “security”.
    - tracker1 2y ago
      I realize this... I was suggesting that Pop is every bit as ready to use as Mint.
      - lproven 2y ago
        How long have you got? • The tiling is clunky, and underneath it's still GNOME, my #1 most hated Linux desktop. • systemd-boot is clunky, does not play well with others, does not dual boot well at all, and it needs a huge ESP yet does not supply tooling to resize the ESP -- and Gparted can't resize FAT32 partitions as small as the typical ESP. • It replaces Snap with Flatpak, which is not an improvement in any meaningful way: the only advocates who bleat that it's more open don't understand what the word means, and architecturally, OStree is a Lovecraftian horror. • The installer is poor and could not handle using an existing `/home` partition when I first tried it (although that did get fixed). It is co-developed with Elementary, which is remarkable because the Elementary one worked better. They'd be better off learning what openness really means and working with Calamares instead. • In summary, it shows many of the defects you'd expect from a distro designed by a hardware manufacturer: poor installation, poor handling of dual boot, poor handling of existing partitions, and poor handling of being put on an existing machine, especially an older one. I find its advocates don't dual boot, don't use older kit, don't do complex partitioning, and so don't notice its defects and are unmoved because the problems do not affect them. Gracefully handling interop and existing tech is one of the things Linux does best, far better than the BSDs for instance, and it is exactly where Pop OS falls down.
yellowapple 2y ago
Funny enough, I argue the exact same thing... about openSUSE.

srazzaque 2y ago

> At home, I no longer dual-boot because I vm. Curious, do you have a Windows host and Linux guest(s)? Or the other way around? I currently have Linux as my primary with a Windows guest OS for when I need it (e.g. Office - I actually think Excel is great - or if I'm doing any Win32/C++ dev). But, I'm thinking of doing it the other way around on my next PC.

bitsandboots 2y ago
Windows host, because I play VR games and GPU passthrough would be inconvenient. I just fullscreen the linux VM and it feels native for all the non-3D tasks I do with it. Even media viewing is a breeze.
- vundercind 2y ago
  My experience has been that Linux is significantly more stable under a VM on Windows or Mac than directly on all but the most conservative hardware. Fewer weird multimedia glitches, no needing to involve any part of the Linux wireless stack of any kind (Bluetooth especially, but also WiFi), fewer video driver issues, fewer program or windowing system crashes.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Because the virtual hardware is a more stable surface, than the plethora of hardware Linux is supposed to run on. That is what I have been doing since hardware virtualization became mainstream.
    - skydhash 2y ago
      Currently doing the same with macOS as the host. Still have the nice apps but with a better dev platform.
      - rewgs 2y ago
        Doing the same thing, it's fantastic.

DEADMINCE 2y ago

> replace finder, to replace the dock with a taskbar, and to rebind the keys, so that everything acted like linux/windows What apps did you use to accomplish this?

m3047 2y ago

In Mac vs Windows I'm Mac for $reasons. That said my personal daily driver is desktop (not laptop) Linux. I've used primarily Macs at work for several decades; that said, my work focuses on systems running primarily Linux these days, and occasionally BSD or in the distant past VMS (once in a while some embedded stuff). I run Linux in a VM on my personal laptop so that I can run KDE desktop apps in the native Mac windowing environment (X forwarding). Working for a threat mitigation company, I built KDE actual with Brew on my company-issued Macbook. Admittedly that was masochism. We didn't use Brew for anything; we didn't do any development at all on our laptops. Fast forward. I transferred to the threat intel team; we did some work in VMs on our laptops, still no Brew. We got bought. New overlords wanted to swap spit / infect themselves with that threaty DNA so loaned me to their prod team. They did all their development in Brew, and deployed to cloudy Linux. They said "use Brew, be like us" and I said no way I am doing that, because my laptop touches bad shit; everything needs to be isolated; loan me a different laptop. But no can do. So I used the devops runbook (and submitted edits!) to build the deployment environment in VMs on my laptop. Prod didn't take kindly to this and threw me back. Left shortly thereafter for $reasons. But not before I made a runbook for the threat team. Some months later heard through the grapevine that the threat team had been tasked with red teaming the actual deployed system which prod was responsible for and that the pwnage was epic. The moral is obvious: your security team shouldn't be the only team eating dog food.