3 ms·

I'm glad I started looking at other distributions like Alpine recently. This could just as well have negative effects as positive ones. Time for me to diversify

I'm glad I started looking at other distributions like Alpine recently. This could just as well have negative effects as positive ones. Time for me to diversify.

wao0uuno 2y ago
What negative effects are you afraid of? I really can not see any downsides to this partnership.
- guerrilla 2y ago
  In the long-run, a project can become dependent on such donations and this can give donors power over the project and those donors may want to steer the project in ways that we don't want to see it go. That may not happen and may even be unlikely but it's important to be prepared for that possibility and have contingencies available. There is already a comment here which discusses one such scenario: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=41695062&goto=item%3Fid%3D41694283%2341695062 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=41695062&goto=item%3Fi...
  - wao0uuno 2y ago
    Maybe I’m being naive but I trust Valve to not fuck this up. They already make their money selling games so they will not try to turn Linux into a product. What they actually want is to make Linux better for everyone so they can reduce their dependency on Microsoft. I guess we’ll see what happens next.
- ribcage 2y ago
  Steam sells software and prevents you from copying it and using it easily. Not something you want to happen to a Linux distribution.
  - tambre 2y ago
    Usage of Steam's DRM is actually optional. There are plenty of games that you can copy the files of and run on another system without Steam present. [0] [0] https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_g...
    - immibis 2y ago
      Optional for the developer. Mandatory for the player. Although I heard rumours it's easy enough to install alternate Steam DLLs that always return "yes" to "is this game licensed?"
      - Sakos 2y ago
        It's trivial. You replace a dll and the Steam API check is circumvented.
        ruthmarx 2y ago
        Piracy often is trivial.
  - exitb 2y ago
    Do they prevent you from using it easily? Yes, they sell software on a platform, but so does Nintendo. Yet Nintendo hardware is completely locked down and the software they sold you works only on said locked down hardware. Meanwhile, I can run anything on SteamDeck, and I can run SteamDeck software and/or their games on any reasonable gaming PC, in any form factor. In practice, over the years that I've had a gaming collection with them, they've only ENABLED me to run the games easily.
puzzlingcaptcha 2y ago
I run Alpine on my mini-laptop (Starlite MkIV) and on an intel compute stick (STK1A32SC) and it works perfectly fine. It's small, fast and straightforward to configure. It has quite a bit of Gentoo DNA which is convenient if you are already familiar with it.
- lproven 2y ago
  > It has quite a bit of Gentoo DNA which is convenient if you are already familiar with it. Do tell? I'm not familiar with Gentoo, TBH, but I wasn't aware of any link.
  - puzzlingcaptcha 2y ago
    https://sourceforge.net/p/leaf/mailman/message/12731262/ https://sourceforge.net/p/leaf/mailman/message/12731262/ It has certainly drifted apart since, but you can still see it here and there (runlevels, initramfs script, how the installed packages are called world etc).
    - lproven 2y ago
      Fair enough! Thanks for this. Interesting info I wasn't aware of.
  - guerrilla 2y ago
    It uses OpenRC, for example.
    - lproven 2y ago
      OK, true, but so do a few other projects.

I'm glad I started looking at other distributions like Alpine recently. This could just as well have negative effects as positive ones. Time for me to diversify.

wao0uuno 2y ago

What negative effects are you afraid of? I really can not see any downsides to this partnership.

guerrilla 2y ago
In the long-run, a project can become dependent on such donations and this can give donors power over the project and those donors may want to steer the project in ways that we don't want to see it go. That may not happen and may even be unlikely but it's important to be prepared for that possibility and have contingencies available. There is already a comment here which discusses one such scenario: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=41695062&goto=item%3Fid%3D41694283%2341695062 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=41695062&goto=item%3Fi...
- wao0uuno 2y ago
  Maybe I’m being naive but I trust Valve to not fuck this up. They already make their money selling games so they will not try to turn Linux into a product. What they actually want is to make Linux better for everyone so they can reduce their dependency on Microsoft. I guess we’ll see what happens next.
ribcage 2y ago
Steam sells software and prevents you from copying it and using it easily. Not something you want to happen to a Linux distribution.
- tambre 2y ago
  Usage of Steam's DRM is actually optional. There are plenty of games that you can copy the files of and run on another system without Steam present. [0] [0] https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_g...
  - immibis 2y ago
    Optional for the developer. Mandatory for the player. Although I heard rumours it's easy enough to install alternate Steam DLLs that always return "yes" to "is this game licensed?"
    - Sakos 2y ago
      It's trivial. You replace a dll and the Steam API check is circumvented.
      - ruthmarx 2y ago
        Piracy often is trivial.
- exitb 2y ago
  Do they prevent you from using it easily? Yes, they sell software on a platform, but so does Nintendo. Yet Nintendo hardware is completely locked down and the software they sold you works only on said locked down hardware. Meanwhile, I can run anything on SteamDeck, and I can run SteamDeck software and/or their games on any reasonable gaming PC, in any form factor. In practice, over the years that I've had a gaming collection with them, they've only ENABLED me to run the games easily.

puzzlingcaptcha 2y ago

I run Alpine on my mini-laptop (Starlite MkIV) and on an intel compute stick (STK1A32SC) and it works perfectly fine. It's small, fast and straightforward to configure. It has quite a bit of Gentoo DNA which is convenient if you are already familiar with it.

lproven 2y ago
> It has quite a bit of Gentoo DNA which is convenient if you are already familiar with it. Do tell? I'm not familiar with Gentoo, TBH, but I wasn't aware of any link.
- puzzlingcaptcha 2y ago
  https://sourceforge.net/p/leaf/mailman/message/12731262/ https://sourceforge.net/p/leaf/mailman/message/12731262/ It has certainly drifted apart since, but you can still see it here and there (runlevels, initramfs script, how the installed packages are called world etc).
  - lproven 2y ago
    Fair enough! Thanks for this. Interesting info I wasn't aware of.
- guerrilla 2y ago
  It uses OpenRC, for example.
  - lproven 2y ago
    OK, true, but so do a few other projects.