I thought the darkest thing you were going to point to was the matter of fact reference to the role of the slave as the inadvertent cup breaker! Some wonderfully insightful thoughts on how to manage one's emotions when confronted by life's challenges, of which I think are worth reading, but taking for granted the other human whose life is not their own and who is treated as (valuable) property by the philosopher is pretty dark to me.
I'm guessing that the institution of slavery was part of the entire imperial project of conquest so even if their conscience was briefly troubled it would've fallen into the 'so it goes' basket. But it does seem strange to the modern reader.
Curious to hear which good ideas had their origin in a distro run by fanatical idealists. Not asking for evidence to try and disprove you. Genuinely curious!
Framing it as "fanatical" is a way of not understanding people's needs sometimes and that makes it harder for oneself to admit when they got it right - after all you don't want to find that you've turned into "a fanatic."
I like rolling distributions. Fedora was my longtime ship and at the beginning it was a pain because I always wanted to build something that wasn't available - the newest version of something like python. Then you wouldn't be able to build it because it had dependencies that needed to be newer also than what Fedora had.
I spent countless hours sorting out dependencies, clashes with the versions that were already installed that I couldn't remove, building and rebuilding things to keep them working and fixing @#$%@ SELinux permissions issues that made things fail extremely mysteriously. I tried making my own updated RPMs to ease the dependency management but that turned out to be so hard to do that I gave up in frustration - some tiny mistake and you have to go through almost the whole process again to get an updated RPM. One would have mysterious failures in the RPM build process that were extremely difficult to debug.
Then RedHat fixed the problem in an even worse way: by releasing new versions at a crazy rate. The upgrade process never seems to go smoothly for me.
Ubuntu was/is more uptodate generally but it's based on exactly the same strategy. Packaging on Ubuntu seems to me to be an even more incredible mess of confusion with documentation that doesn't help one iota.
I tried various things but the one that stuck with me was Artix. It's rolling and it sometimes breaks e.g. today when the new nvidia 590 drivers installed and they don't work with my old card. The upside is that it's always at the bleeding edge and I rarely need to build things myself - and if I do I usually already have the required dependencies. Packages also install with all the development headers etc and for me that is just a luxurious simplicity. I could also understand the PKGBUILD files and use makepkg without even needing to see the documentation. It just works.
It also doesn't use systemd. That's a preference you might call fanatical but I did after all get off windows to use Linux partly so that "the man" wouldn't tell me what to like so why would I accept that kind of thing on Linux? I use dinit instead and that is what I would have liked systemd to be - a service manager with a simple file format that is a million times easier to write and more reliable than system V init scripts and the ability to use it for running things in a user session as well .... and nothing else.
Anyhow this is all driven by my personality - I like trying out new things. I'm not fantatical, I think?? My computer is a toy for my mind. My work machines can be "reliable."
chatpgt has sent me wrong instructions on just as many occasions it has given the right instructions on how to fix things on linux. It's frustrating when it sends me a 'fix' on something that doesn't even need it (steps on installing a particular flavour of Proton to bypass Rockstar's launcher, when it was already done by default). And because I'm not terribly adept I only appreciate it's the wrong instructions after implementing it and it not working.
As much as I hope it to be mass exodus, and as someone who switched over to CachyOS as my main OS in Nov 2025, I'm not sure that 3% of the steam user base really qualifies as a 'mass' exodus.
Going back to my Windows install every now and then to do things feels uncomfortable. Almost like I'm sullying myself! The extent of Microsoft's intrusiveness kind of makes it feel like entering a poorly maintained public space...at least compared to my linux install.
I'm not sure that the majority of people feel this way about Windows 11. They just put up with it in the same way as they do YouTube ads, web browsing without ublock origin, social media dark patterns etc. But certainly, never been a better time I think to move to linux for my kind of user, i.e. the only mildly technologically adept.
There are a lot of Steam gamers with 5 games in their library who log on once a month. There are a few Steam gamers with 5000 games in their library who are permanently logged in. There's folks who play one game obsessively, and folks who tinker around with many games.
I'm willing to bet that the 3% are the kind of people who buy a lot of games.
I'd love to see that "what percentage of games have been bought by people on which platform?" metric. I think it'd be a lot more than 3% on Linux, even if you count Steam Deck as a separate platform.
I agree. Would be fascinating how that 3% breaks down. Although excluding the SteamOS/steam deck users that desktop segment drops to about 2.25%, seeing how 25% of Linux installs are steamOS.
I think SteamOS being available for PC and promoted by Valve could be a game changer. It provides a trusted and familiar pathway for a different way of doing things. But while it would perhaps reduce Windows installs, I can't see it help grow a user base of DIY linux tinkerers, if that is of any importance. I can kind of see it being a bit like Android makes the majority of phone users linux users, but not entirely sure what that means for linux desktop.
I think SteamOS's desktop mode will get used more as people discover it. I was kinda impressed that I could just switch out to a desktop on my Steam Deck, and then used it to play videos while travelling.
The whole "it's better than a console at being a PC, and better than a PC at being a console" thing. It'll be interesting to see if it takes off.
I think you'd lose that bet. The kind of people who buy a lot of games are also the people who are not going to be tolerant of game compatibility issues on Linux; they want to play the game, not futz with their OS.
2 years ago I would have agreed with you, but the game compatibility issues really aren't there any more. Proton has made huge strides, and the Steam Deck has forced a lot of game companies to make sure that there aren't any issues.
> I'm not sure that 3% of the steam user base really qualifies as a 'mass' exodus.
Major tech reviewers are talking about Bazzite. Reddit gaming forums are full of people talking about Win11 vs Linux.
Microsoft only has two strangle holds on PCs - gaming and office apps. For home users they literally have 0 lock in now days other than familiarity. No one is writing native windows apps outside of legacy productivity apps and games. Even Microsoft is writing Windows components in React now days.
I moved to Linux earlier this year and literally none of my apps were unavailable. Everything is a browser window now days.
15 years ago that would've been crazy, I had tons of native windows apps I used every day.
I know linux gaming is getting a buzz and I'm happy to see it. I'm honestly surprised it took so long for people like Gamers Nexus to review linux, but thankful that they did.
But by saying 'For home users they literally have 0 lock in now days other than familiarity.' I think you severely underestimate how powerful familiarity is in anchoring non-tech users to particular platforms. However dysfunctional they can be.
As I mentioned, I moved to linux myself earlier this year. But the first time I tried it was probably around 2004. And I've dipped in and out occasionally but not stuck with it until this year, when I've found it to be a significant improvement on the Windows alternative.
Microsofts own creation presents a real opportunity for an uptake in linux adoption. But I do think it still presents sufficient friction and unfamiliarity for average non-tech users to take on. The only significant issue I had with your initial comment was with your reference to a 'mass' exodus, even if it is confined to the gaming community.
Happy to be proven wrong of course. And perhaps to the annoyance of my friends, willing to help anyone I know interested with a linux install.
But looking forward to the Dec 2025 steam survey. Looking forward to the tiny contribution my little install will make to the linux numbers!
Just want to reassure you that is not at all 'no longer PC'. If anything, the practice was banned by the coloniser - only for it more recently reintroduced.
gamers nexus did a great (and very long) video on the impact of tariffs on US computer businesses. Some of the manufacturers went into quite a bit of detail breaking down their costs and how tariffs would render some products so unprofitable that they would cease to serve the US market. Not sure if it necessarily applies to a niche/low volume business, but the impacts on a larger business were eye opening:
I use Thunderbird on a MacBook Air (Apple Silicon). Just be warned that it seems to use a lot of CPU resources (when seemingly not doing anything) and therefore uses up the battery faster than it should. It's not a deal breaker. I tend to keep it closed until I check my mail, which isn't ideal, but then again, it's not the worst productivity/stay focused habit to have. This is as of May 2023 and earlier. Hoping the update/integration with Firefox may improve this.
High cpu usage has been the case with Thunderbird on MacOS since forever. I've long wanted to switch to apple mail due to battery drain, but I just can't work with a unified accounts. I have multiple accounts and like keeping them separate.
Rob Adams, former City Architect at City of Melbourne, did a study a little while ago that showed you could fit in 1 million more residents if you filled in grayfield sites with medium density, and without impacting on existing heritage zoning. Grayfield being existing under-utilised land (i.e open carparks that can could be built over).
It's been a while since I watched this video but the proposal is for 5 storey high developments along transport corridors that do not tower over suburbs like high density developments, but which also serve to engage with street life more effectively than existing low density.
It can be done. But obviously needs a departure from existing low density suburban sprawl, and a tight control over overdevelopment. But it can actually result in better amenities, faster transport, for residents.
I'm guessing that the institution of slavery was part of the entire imperial project of conquest so even if their conscience was briefly troubled it would've fallen into the 'so it goes' basket. But it does seem strange to the modern reader.
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