SavvyWolf

I like being in control of my computer.

Windows and Android have this attitude where they decide how you want to use your device and block customisation. And the fact that they feel entitled to be able to change how your device looks and feels without warning or permission is something that’s deeply uncomfortable to me. There’s also this feeling of not knowing what my device is actually doing, and how much of my data it is actually collecting.

With Windows, there’s also a lot of small papercuts that make it annoying to use (and that my Windows friends don’t seem to understand):

• Lack of middle click paste.
• Lack of the ability to drag windows using “alt”.
• You can’t turn off the window previews in the task bar.
• You can’t disconnect from a wired network connection from the connections list.
• Sometimes the computer just restarts on its own for fun.
• Finding settings is a pain because they keep adding new settings menus.
• Whatever garbage the start menu is doing nowadays.
• Installing software and drivers is a pain.
• The attitude that you have to download (or buy!) third party software for core features that should be included in the OS.
• It doesn’t support my keyboard layout, and the editor for making new layouts is terrible.
• The bitlocker password entry doesn’t respect your keyboard layout. Or clear the entry when you get it wrong.
• Windows licenses are a pain to manage.
• Managing the bootloader just sucks.
• The registry just kinda sucks compared to dconf and/or text config files.
• Font rendering is ugly, imo.
• I don’t care about edge, fuck off with that shit.
• I can’t change the volume by using the scroll wheel.
• Launching a pinned app on the task bar causes all the other pinned apps to shift around so I misclick.
• Device letters are not stable if you add or remove devices.
• It just resets settings sometimes, because why not?
• It can’t be installed to a partition that isn’t the first partition on the disk. This is not mentioned anywhere, nor is the error useful.
• It’s just bad for developing on, due to lack of tooling.

… Whew I ranted for a while there, didn’t I? Yeah, I dual boot Windows for the games that either don’t run under protonwine or the devs want to add a rootkit to.

Yeah, it’s a bit at odds with their “free from corporate influence” angle. Absolutely no reason to not use Matrix.

I used to think this way, then it was pointed out to me that, without timezones, we’d be in a situation where Saturday starts mid-workday in some places.

Oooh, I get to say an “Umm… Actually” fact. File names are not case sensitive in Linux nor are they case insensitive in Windows.

It’s entirely possible to have a case insensitive filesystem on Linux (I think ext4 supports a mount option for it now). Likewise, there’s a bit you can set on folders in Windows that makes its contents case sensitive. So realistically, case sensitivity is a property of the folder, not the OS.

Yes, that’s as annoying as it sounds.

I think the onboarding and new user experience for Mint could be better, but I think there’s one important thing that I think makes Mint a good intro distro: Its Ubuntu base.

If you look up guides for “linux” it usually gives instructions for Ubuntu, which usually also apply to Mint. Likewise, if you look for software downloads you tend to find Ubuntu debs.

I know flatpak fixes these issues to an extent, but I think we’re not there yet.

If you’re serious about getting help from the community, open source the game and/or provide concrete questions on what code you want to improve.

I like flatpaks and flathub, but this is just something they do badly. I think as well they also have “probably safe” which is just as unhelpful… And what does “access certain files and folders” even mean!?

I think they should just follow the example of every other app store; list the permissions in an easily understandable list and let the user decide whether or not they are comfortable with it.

Did they have to go with such a loud shade of blue? It would look so much better on the eyes if it was a nice deep dark blue.

Tbh I don’t even know why it needs to be blue or any colour at all.

… I mean, you can actually probably go without a computer entirely for a month.

So aside for a few wording and technical issues, something stuck out to me. Using “special” to refer to neurodivergence is a bit problematic and potentially dogwhistley because of the historical contexts it’s been used in to dismiss and look down on people. And even if it wasn’t, it’s a bit ambiguous; can someone who feels that they are in touch with their “spiritual side” consider themselves to have a “special brain”?

If you’re wondering about neurodivergence, probably better to just ask “Are you neurodivergent?” rather than using euphemisms.

Maybe we’d be warmer towards AI if it wasn’t being used as a way for big companies to steal content from smaller creative types in order to fund valueless wealth generators.

Big surprise that a group consisting of people rather than corporations is mad about it.

I checked, and according to Statcounter it’s at 3.3%. So if Mozilla did go hardball, it’d affect an insignificant amount of people.

Realistically though, I don’t follow world politics much but I assume that “blocking firefox” probably wouldn’t be the worst optics they’ve had in the past few years.

It’s either get the addons removed, or get the whole addon store itself blocked. You can just install the extension from an xpi file.

Mozilla really isn’t in a position to fight the Russian government over this and win.

How much log information is being printed to the console? If it’s logging something every frame then that could be using a ton of resources.

deleted by creator

deleted by creator

I have a Windows dual boot for the (nowadays rather rare) cases where a game won’t run in Linux.

Interestingly, I spent a while trying to get League of Legends working with their new rootkit requirements… But my Windows-using friends weren’t comfortable playing the game any more.

deleted by creator

Tbh, I’d rather they use the money to make Linux distros better. Valve made the Steam deck a winner not through advertising, but through making a good quality product and supporting the ecosystem.

I have no interest in people making Linux popular beyond the minimum required to get companies to support it. If it’s good, people will naturally learn about it through word of mouth.

Also, directly attacking Microsoft feels like they could get sued for libel or something like that.

Steam probably.