Notices by LuckyStoat (luckystoat@mastodon.social)

@itsfoss
For me, it's a balancing act between package up to dateness and stability.

I don't like needing to download hundreds of megabytes of library updates every few days that I frankly don't care about. But at the same time, I want to run relatively recent versions of the software I use and not something from years ago. I usually end up with a hybrid solution with flatpak for my apps as a compromise.

@nixCraft
Technically speaking, a really weird proprietary scripting language made in VB6 because it was tied to a game I liked to play.

The first language I actually learned was python because I bought one of those game dev tutorial books which used it and pygame

@itsfoss
#endeavouros has been my main on my PC for the past few years. I distro hop often, but endeavour is what I typically return to.

@itsfoss
I guess it takes some amount of discipline not to fill your system with AUR packages. Also since it's rolling, you don't get the fun hype of "Version X.Y has been released!" Pacman just kind of does its thing and gives you major updates as they get eleased.

(Endeavour OS)

@nixCraft
For me, I tried remembering them as diagonals rather than individual directions. Left and right are easy because their position matched the direction (despite L meaning right)

@nixCraft
Dusk of the last day,
with new code fresh from the branch.
Just one final deploy! :BlobhajShock:

@itsfoss
I like that it's under my control and I don't have to do tons of hidden registry hacks, settings tweaks and such to get a desktop that respects my privacy.

@itsfoss
For me, it's Endeavour. I like having the most up to date packages, especially my desktop. Arch and Void are also excellent fits for me.

@itsfoss
It's now been 15 years, my first distro was Ubuntu 9.04.

What keeps me loyal is that I simply like it. I like that there are multiple desktops, though KDE is my favourite. I like that the update system isn't draconian and evil. The filesystem hierarchy makes sense, I like having a home folder. I enjoy tinkering with my desktop from time to time. The CLI is a great feature once you learn it.

And above all else, I've learned how to make it work for me and my needs.

@itsfoss
At least it seems the processing is happening locally. I'm not too big on the idea of AI powered file search, but I could be proven wrong with a good implementation.

@itsfoss
I like the plasma desktop. I was pleased with 5, but 6 feels even more snappy. And for some reason for me, gnome starts feeling sort of sluggish to me after a while. I still need to learn how to theme it well though.

@itsfoss
More or less whatever distro I'm on at the time, it's not my primary focus. At the moment it's been endeavour OS. I think though technically I've gamed on every distro I've used though at some point.

@itsfoss
I guess one thing that's useful is learning how to rescue files from a broken windows install or for someone who forgot their password.

@itsfoss
It's actually quite shocking how much tinkering and modding windows 11 needs to cut out all the "features" Microsoft keeps adding, like trying to bypass the default browser, polluting the start menu, etc. Suuure I trust them...

@itsfoss
Well, back then, wifi drivers were a lot more finicky. Sometimes it was a several hour long endeavour to get the wifi drivers working on some new piece of hardware.

Fortunately, things have gotten better since then and a newer kernel usually fixes it, but USB wifi dongles still sometimes require building a custom driver. Since then though, documentation has gotten better, but it could just be that I'm more comfortable now I'm a dev myself.

@itsfoss
Fortunately we'll always have a choice. Even if gnome and kde both implement AI in their main design, environments like xfce, lxqt and especially window managers will not. Personally, I'd rather that AI stays out of Linux unless it's a part of an optional feature for some app. I just don't see the benefit of integrating it in the core desktop experience.

@arstechnica
Well, that's an interesting turn of events I didn't expect to see. This is certainly one way to get me to stop using the Google bang on duckduckgo.

@nixCraft
Always has... But it's getting better, I think. :Blobhaj:

@nixCraft
I usually go with digital ocean for my projects. I don't have very big demands, usually I go with the $7 basic droplet. I switched over to CloudFlare for my static hosting though.

@itsfoss
Please start by dual booting if possible. Linux isn't Windows and if you depend on specific proprietary software, you may find the open source equivalent might not be enough, or there might not even be one at all. But never the less, give it a week or two as your primary OS and give it a serious chance. And please choose a distro that tries to make it easy for new users, like Mint for example. There's no shame in wanting to have things just work.