TechConnectify@mas.to - Oh my gosh I just figured it out.
Okay, all you open source evangelist people: your knee-jerk reaction to come at people who are talking about a problem with whatever commercial software they use and suggest Your Favorite Alternatives™ is exactly like saying “why don’t you just buy a house?” to someone complaining about their landlord.
TechConnectify@mas.to - Actually, to borrow from @DoubleA, it’s worse than that.
It’s like talking to someone who is in a crappy apartment as though they have the agency and skills to stake out a plot of land and build their own home.
You have to be at peace with the fact that some people just want to exist and not worry about so many things. And they still have a right to complain about their situation.
Link to thread: https://mas.to/@TechConnectify/111539959265152243
Better comparison would’ve been something like “Annoyed with your landlord? Go build a cabin in the woods!”. Like, that’s straight-up appealing to some people, but it’s also not just something anyone and everyone can do.
Even then that’s not that accurate, more like move to a different place. It’s inconvenient and might not have all the same things you wanted/liked from your old place but you can actually change things in the new place if you really want to
Translation:“I refuse to try the thing that people tell me might make my life better. I prefer to rant and complain to random strangers on a public forum rather than accepting that a solution to my problem may exist”
It’s funny, this is not at all his stance when it comes to hardware and appliances. It doesn’t even sound like something he’d say.
I follow him on Mastodon, and I think many regular users misunderstand his specific problems. They’re unique due to his huge number of followers, and I think that if we want Mastodon to grow, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to include more tools for folks with large followings.
The whole point is that a bunch of people don’t have the technical skills to figure out FOSS. Sure, sometimes the ux is just as good as the main competitor, but in my experience, usually it isnt and has a decent learning curve
I’d be more sympathetic to that mindset if it was anyone other than TC saying this. He’s a smart dude and I have every confidence he could figure out how to use a new piece of software.
It’s an interesting take from a tech YouTuber to say they are not good with tech
Guy wanted to vent about smart thermostats, explicitly said he doesn’t need advice and got bajillion responses with advice, mostly from FOSS folks who couldn’t contain themselves. I’d be annoyed too.
When I say “don’t think of a panda”, what do you think of? Pretty much the same thing with saying “don’t recommend me FOSS options” lol
Are houses free now?
Exactly! I actually talked back and forth with him a bit and eventually said that “complaining about a missing FOSS feature is like complaining to the volunteer ladeler at a soup kitchen about the lack of a gluten-free option. It’s just not the path to getting the change you want.”
In the end he seemed to get what I was saying, but was still irritated. I’ve been really learning lately how hard it is for some people not to see themselves as customers in FOSS land.
@morrowind funny to find this here when I wrote my reply just a while ago:
“It’s like talking to someone who is in a crappy apartment as though they have the agency and skills to stake out a plot of land and build their own home.”
Maybe if you’re suggesting them to install Linux From Scratch, then yes, it is.
If you’re suggesting them them to install any of the many very simple (and very usable OOTB) distros like Fedora, then it’s not.
In that case it’s like the house is free, already built and furnitured, and right next to their own; but they have to move their personal belongings from one house to the other and learn a different room layout.
Sure, they still have the right to complain about how their landlord treats them like crap. But they sound pretty damn stupid if they do so while having an available free house right next door, and refusing to move because they don’t want to learn a new room layout.
How many times have you setup Fedora or any other Linux distribution and have every single thing working from the get go?
I’m talking drivers, audio, networking, libraries, DNF, repositories, plugins, runtime dependencies, …
- That house isn’t furnished.
And don’t forget, plenty of popular software isn’t even compatible. Meaning you got to use alternative software that doesn’t always do what you want it to do.
- So buy a new couch, cause that one isn’t getting in.
How many times have you setup Fedora or any other Linux distribution and have every single thing working from the get go?
“Every”
How many times have you setup Fedora or any other Linux distribution and have every single thing working from the get go?
I’m talking drivers, audio, networking, libraries, DNF, repositories, plugins, runtime dependencies, …
Is proprietary software any easier than that though? Don’t you have to put in much more time removing all the spyware and bloat they put in and then spend all your time perpetually fighting against forced updates and applications being installed without your permission?
Whereas with Fedora my experience is more or less install it and forget it.
The “it’s easier” argument for proprietary software I think died at least 15 years ago.
Choice of applications is a different argument.
Is proprietary software any easier than that though?
Yes, take nvidia drivers for example, on windows I just download the installer and run it and done.
Last time I tried to move to Linux desktop (attempted Fedora and then EndeavourOS) about a year ago, none of that worked properly. Installing drivers was not in any way straightforward, needing CLI commands and google, where every guide I found seemed to have a different method used to install them, I kept getting outdated ones, and I had no idea what I was doing.
At the end of all that I still didn’t have HW acceleration in my browsers, my desktop had screen tearing, gsync didn’t work properly in windowed apps, the GPU wouldn’t downclock fully at idle like it’s supposed to, I couldn’t figure out how to get shadowplay working, and so on.
And yes I do know this is technically mostly nvidia’s fault for not having as good quality of drivers on linux. But as an end user all I care about is that my stuff works properly without googling things, needing the CLI, and spending a lot of time on it.
Don’t you have to put in much more time removing all the spyware and bloat they put in and then spend all your time perpetually fighting against forced updates and applications being installed without your permission?
Definitely not, I don’t really spend much time at all. I haven’t experienced forced updates, my apps just update through winget manually when I want to. There are a few extra apps I don’t need on windows but those take a minute to remove, I can’t say I’ve ever experienced an app being installed without my permission other than edge I guess, but that replaces IE for embedded browser stuff so it’s kind of needed.
Most of my ‘admin’ time is spent on the opensource apps I use, generally on my self hosted stuff. But also just on basic things like backup software, Veeam is my primary backup which is basically a 1 minute set up with a few clicks through the GUI, but I’ve been trying out Restic too which requires writing my own scripts to handle backups, more scripts to handle pruning and such, manually installing them as services so they run properly, and writing my own notification system on top of that just to get an email if something goes wrong.
Opensource is great, but it’s usually extremely time intensive to get the same results, with lots of documentation, google, and just wasted time trying to figure out the basics.
Admittedly I do have the bias of experience which could blind me to the difficulties, when I phrased my first two sentences as questions they were genuine questions. Between work and personal life I must’ve installed Linux in some form at least 200 times over the last 20 years, so I’m not most users.
I’ve also not used Windows in many years, the last I think was when I had to use Windows 7 for work about 10 years ago and I found it extremely difficult to get it to do what I want. If it’s improved then it’s improved.
On the other hand a novice user can ask somebody to install Linux for them, what about that? That’s what my non-techy parents have done, and it’s easier for them to use Linux (they say so) and easier for me to provide technical support for them.
Also yes, avoid Nvidia.
With 0 experience with linux i installed nobara without any problems. I didnt need to install anything else(edit: excluding the software you can install in the “welcome” app), to change something in the settings etc
The only “hard” thing i had to do was to disable secure boot in the BIOS
I think you are talking about the situation that might be true 15 years ago, vut right now you’ll be hardpressed to find anything that doesn’t work out of the box on any modern distribution. I don’t know what plugins and dependancies don’t work on your machine, but I assure you it’s not a universal experience, far from it.
Also, most of the software that you use on Linux is free, so you don’t “buy” new couch if your old is built specifically for your old house, you learn to sit on any of the new ones that you can get for free at any momentDraugerOS wouldnt even boot from the thumb drive for me. Garuda sort of worked, the live boot was damn near perfect, from a stability and basic performance perspective, but after a basic install there were some annoying artifacts like a block behind the cursor on some windows, steams store page would flash rapidly and performance was trash in any game even on low settings. A Logitech mouse scroll wheel was hit or miss working. I mean like you spin the wheel and while the wheel was free spinning the browser would start and stop responding to it. 8 hours of messing with kernels, drivers, and settings it I threw in the towel. Not worth the effort to just get it to run normally let alone
Arch was similarly poor performance. Mint was also poor performance. Im not a fan of the PopOS style, but it actually ran great on my machine so, I’ll take it.
Point being, I tried 4 different distros before finding one that worked mostly well out of box.
Edit: wrong name for draugeros
Where the fuck have you found whatever weird esoteric distribs you are talking about, and why on earth did you went with those? Depending on the answer to the question, I kind of understand how you managed to make Arch “perform poorly” whatever that means in that regard, you need to have at least basic understanding to use Arch (or treat it as an opportunity to learn).
But you don’t start your experiments with something from third page of Google, at that point you’re an alpha tester.Google best gaming Linux distros. DraugerOS, Garuda, and popos are all prominent distros focused on gaming.
DraugerOS is Ubuntu LTS based.
Mint, not gaming focused, has been around for ages and is Ubuntu based. I’ve used it previously on older hardware with no issue. Just apparently doesn’t like newer hardware.
Garuda is arch based, probably why it was such a pain.
Popos is Ubuntu based as well.
I’ve also tried KDE plasma, ubuntu based, and man was that slow as hell. Works great on some hardware not on the hardware I tried.
I’ve installed Ubuntu in the past and had WiFi driver issues.
You mentioned any modern distros should work out of the box. The only one listed that mostly worked out of the box with semi reasonable performance was popos.
if someone is looking to install a distros to play games, theyll probably google “Linux for gaming” install one of the prominent distros listed above geared toward gaming then bang their head against the wall and quit.
We may understand arch is a full time job, but when Joe from sales builds a new gaming rig and took someone’s advice to install Linux and save money he doesn’t know all Linux distros are not created equally. Maybe he gets garuda or draugeros and bangs his head against the wall then goes back to windows.
There are a million different distros and yes some of the major ones work fine, but not always and if you run into issues it can be exponentially harder to fix the issue especially if you have no IT experience. Making it even worse is toxicity in forums or other support places where people treat you like you should know better because they have of knowledge of Linux and forget that we all have different levels of experience, many people have no experience.
Well. And maybe the new house doesn’t support their bed.
i mean yeah but they can just dual boot to metaphorically keep the old house too
Or you can just keep your old house where everything works, and the only annoying thing is the landlord.
Just gotta figure out if you’re ok with your landlord reading your diary.
Most people are completely fine with it.
When I say to my sister “I will literally buy the house for you, help you move in, and give you my phone number you can call any time you need any help with it” and she comes back with “I’d rather sit here and complain about my landlord” I think I have a right to get angry
If I had you as a sibling I would use a lot more foss stuff then lol.
you have to admit this is one hell of an edge case. the vast majority don’t have your sister’s ‘problem’
I think the majority of us also don’t want to play tech support.
I don’t like helping non-tech people because they don’t want to learn. They just want it fixed. I understand the mindset and I’m that same way on other things. But I don’t want to be their “tech guy”.
I do like helping in the FOSS community though because people generally do want to learn.
the sword is double edged, the ones you neglect will come to you when it gets bad.
Which is why me and people like me don’t care much what our relatives use :D
Yeah, and that is their opinion, which is as valid as yours.
They are the ones who will have to use the software day in and out, they should be the ones to decide which software they use.
okay but you still don’t get to act like i’m saying “just buy a house!”
Who is this and why should we care about his opinion?
He’s a pretty awesome educational YouTuber but this is a dumb take. To be fair, he’s not a programmer or software guy. I believe his background is in engineering.
Even without being a programmer, associating Free Software with a MASSIVE purchase is bonkers.
I know a lot of people (even people who work in IT) who automatically assume free=shitty. It’s hard to appreciate just how effective and influential FOSS has been as a business model unless you are immersed in the world of software.
Classic example of judging a book by it’s cover I guess. The fact big tech is embracing open source software more and more, you’d think this assessment should no longer be the case.
is exactly like saying “why don’t you just buy a house?” to someone complaining about their landlord.
What an idiotic comparison.
Buying a house costs so much money and time that most people cannot afford to, and those who can generally must go into debt for most of their remaining lives in order to do so. Suggesting FOSS to replace “whatever commercial software they use” is the polar opposite, in that it’s literally free (usually in both senses of the word). It’s more like suggesting that someone consider a new route to commute from home to work.
Also, this opening…
Okay, all you open source evangelist people: your knee-jerk reaction to come at people
…is incredibly reductive and combative. The world needs less of that, not more.
Are you trying to gather a lynch mob here? I think posts like these are quite bad taste. Most wont have a good understanding of the situation.
Does this really fit this community?
Is there a community where a take like this would be considered and welcome? Asking because I would like to follow that community…
I think it’s a discussion worth having, since it’s clearly a recurring problem.
If buying an house was free, you can be sure I would definitely tell that to every fucking anyone.
