tldr: For Linux adoption it would be better for devs to focus on 2 ("main") distros which are very similar to Windows and macOS and then 2-3 further ("big") distros which give a bit more room to experiment. All the other distros create confusion and analysis-paralysis for the user who wants to switch or wants to help others to do the switch.
Edit because some people got emotional and I was being imprecise:
Disclaimer: I dont want to dictate any foss dev, I understand that "Linux" isnt a company. By "Linux" in this post I only ment the desktop OS for personal and work use.
--- (sorry for the long paragraph, i ranted and brain dumped the idea)
I see a problem: Even "stable" distros like Debian and big and "fully developed" DEs like KDE or GNOME arent ready for the majority of the users switching from windows. Missing software compatibility and the need to fall back on the commandline are just some of the problems. The biggest one is the confusion for the average user: They google "install Linux" and then need to do research for at least 30minutes, figuring out which of the popular distros is the right one for them. If decided, then (depending on the distro) they then have to choose the DE.
Its a sinilar problem to the adoption of the Fediverse: You are expected to decide what instance you want to be part of. This makes it also very hard for a linux enthusiasts to convince/help install a distro for a family member, as you dont know their preferenced or how they use their Win/Mac machine. So either you as an expert have to observe and then do research on what distro+DE fits the usecase or the enduser themselves need to distro-hop, which is obviously not happening.
Now you are thinking: But just install Linux Mint and they probably do most of the things in their Browser anyways.
But in my experience the switch of potentially the browser, the mail-client and ontop of that the OS is a pretty tall ask for an average end user. So the whole switching thing becomes a multi year operation where they first switch the software they use to FOSS one. Which is a tall order and it makes it even harder to explain and convince someone. Heck, it already takes multiple days to get my grandma up to speed after the change Win10 -> Win11, because some buttons moved and the context menue looks different.
Now my utopian idea: If there were only a handful of popular distros+DEs, one could map them on a 2D-plane or even on a spectrum of "fixed, you have to adapt" to "flexible, you have to adjust the settings". Mac users could switch to a distro which is quite fixed (comparable to macOS). This fixed distro should out of the box be close to the mac experience. With windows the same.
Very very rough prototype of the spectrum to visualize my idea. I dont know enough about it but tried anyways:
flexible
Windows 10
MacOS
fixed
If then most of Linux Devs (from Kernel to distro to UI to software) mostly focus on the 4-5 main distros, then they would get more stable and they could be made to behave closer to their proprietary counterparts.
This then could make the switch from Mac/Win so much more easy because:
The distro is closer to the old proprietary OS. So the enduser just has to learn other "new" software, the OS doesnt demand a learning curve but just replicates the Win/Mac experience.
The decision which distro to use is easier, as there are the main ones which are easy to choose because they are distinct from one another.
Disclaimer: No, i am no expert, I probably dont know enough of the technical side, I just wanted to share the enduser experience. Obviously there will always be countless distros by enthusiasts who tinker with their dozends of dev-friends for their personal-perfect distro. There will always be the people who deliberately do some frankensteined distro, and I am not here to forbid any of this. The confusing diversity of all the options is just not helping the wider public.
I've seen this opinion voiced quite a few times for the last 28 or so years I've been a Linux user.
Guess what? It's free and open source software. People work on what they feel like when they feel like if they feel like. You can't mandate "let's just have a couple of distros, think of the public!". It doesn't work like that. Yes, life is not perfect.
Furthermore, Linux (as a whole) is not a for-profit project, or a singular organization.
Desktop Linux is far from it's only purpose, and many of the devs are far more interested in their own use-cases: servers, embedded systems, supercomputers, phones, special purpose OSs. Wikipedia even has a page for the wide range of use beyond desktops and servers. So we can't simply treat devs as a unified group with a common goal like we can generally do with Microsoft, Apple, Google, Steam, etc. unless you pick a particular distro!
Agree! I dont want to dictate anyone and I understand that my rant wont change anything.
It was more about the hypothetical optimum "if we one wanted to optimize for user-share of the desktop OS market", then there should be fewer but better distros.
My feeling on this is that or the "general public desktop" use case we have to defer to corporate supported distros (RedHat, Ubuntu, Suse), because they have to work with hardware vendors that are typically averse to the idea of sharing driver code, and you have to make sure your desktop runs smoothly on your average PC.
No, I dont suggest that there should be another new distro. The existing ones are pretty good at the goal of being userfriendly, at least some of them like Linux Mint
But mint wouldn’t be possible without the work that the Ubuntu community puts into making a stable and polished distribution. And Ubuntu wouldn’t be possible without the Debian community who put in the effort to make the distribution the best for their usage.
I guess its in the nature of open source. However really need to get on top of the search results of "install linux". I like the End of 10 campaign, however i also have just noticed that in their install guide they don't specify where to get Linux exactly just
Download the operating system you want to install. Search for Linux distributions for beginners to get some suggestions.
It is a problem if the goal is to increase the "personal desktop OS marketshare".
But diversity is a good thing for itself I agree. I have the feeling that it is a bit sad that it seems that there isnt one or two "main" distros, which one could recommend that tech illiterate family member.
The problem isn’t diversity of distributions. The problems are people who go on describing history of GNU/Linux when a newbie asks them what distribution to start with; and ‘top 10 Linux distributions’ articles which litter the Internet. Just the other day someone shared a link to Distrochooser, a website which gives newbies ten distributions to pick from.
When a newbie asks about Linux, point them at Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition and that’s it. Or at most ask if their primary use-case is playing games in which case recommend Bazzite. That solves the ‘problem’ of distribution proliferation.
I switched to LMCE when Win 10 becoming unsupported started being announced. I fucking love it. Sure it was different from what I was used to, but it worked, right away. I was able to install software that did what I needed with 0 hassle with very few exceptions and now I'm used to it. I also have no urge to distro hop, but I'm glad that the people who want to can.
I think this is a great unpopular opinion. TL:DR; In a similar sense to Lemmy/Fediverse vs. Reddit, the diversity of setups and software with some common elements is part of the point.
::: spoiler the rest of my long comment
Many of the dev teams have different philosophies and aims, and they aren't being paid to work together, let alone if they're receiving any money at all.
Ubuntu kind of was the normie out-of-the-box distro previously, but people always had a bone to pick with Canonical, be it with systemd, their Amazon ad stuff or with snaps.
On the gaming side, Valve helped immensely with the commercial aspect, boosting tireless efforts by community developers of projects like DXVK and Wine to make Linux gaming viable. Valve was trying long before the Steam Deck. In 2013 they released the Linux Steam Client and their port of Portal. Later they released the Steam Machine which wasn't too successful but along with the Steam Controller was a precursor to the Deck. Now with arch-based HoloOS, Proton, as well as the sandbox system, games built for Windows can easily be made to work on most Linux distros without worrying about library dependencies or other issues that were common from the way various distros are built and managed.
From an enduser perspective, as long as you can access the apps you want and do the things you want to with your computer, it's mostly the look of the desktop environment rather than anything under the hood that matters to most people. The big ones are GNOME, KDE, Cinnamon, XFCE, MATE. Perhaps user guides could be made to better transition people to not feel lost, but there are both legitimate reasons (like accessibility) and others as a matter of taste to select a particular desktop environment.
Thank God you are not forbidding anyone from working on their own distros.
Can you elaborate on how we are going to get Ubuntu and Fedora developers to work on Debian and Arch instead? Are we going to buy out IBM and Canonical?
FOSS developers don't develop distros. Distro maintainers package that software into distros. Linux, KDE, GNOME, systemd, GNU software etc are just single pieces of the puzzle developed individually.
The distro is closer to the old proprietary OS. So the enduser just has to learn other “new” software, the OS doesnt demand a learning curve but just replicates the Win/Mac experience.
There's always a learning curve with new things (software or otherwise). In case of Win why would we want to go back in time in usability? E.g. Cinnamon and KDE are far superior in UX compared to Windows. Also in Linux distros you can actually fix problems unlike in windows.
I've been using Linux as a daily driver since 2018 (thanks Valve and Proton) and in my experience things just work (if they are supported) and thing like headset don't just randomly stop working because reasons unlike in windows. In windows you then run some troubleshooter that can't fix it, reboot several times while praying to whatever gods you like and hope for the best. If that doesn't help you start searching online and only find vague instructions that might help but no solutions.
Missing software compatibility
What compatibility? If user insists on running some windows only software it's expected to run into problems.
the need to fall back on the commandline are just some of the problems.
So? Even windows and macOS has a command line. It's easier to help with problems if you instruct them to run some command (though running random commands of the web is not really a good idea security wise) then trying to navigate them to some gui which might not exist in their distro. Even in windows users are told to run commands in the command line to try and fix problems e.g. sfc /scannowand dism <whatever>.
Now you are thinking: But just install Linux Mint and they probably do most of the things in their Browser anyways.
In AD 2025 this is true in most cases. People just use social media, some webmail, youtube, read news etc. The OS is just there to start the web browser.
What you say could be boiled down to: If just everybody concentrated on making quality software for Windows, we could have much more quality software for Windows.
Your view is common but irrational. The concept is described by Linus Torvalds as "Scratch your own itch". The richness and diversity of Linux distros is a strength not a weakness.
If you want to make a Barbie themed distro you can. And if you want to, why should anyone try to prevent you? If development was concentrated around fewer distros, it is far from a sure thing this development would go in the direction you would personally want. You would just have fewer options.
You're laboring under the common misconception that enticing windows and macos users is the objective. It's not.
For anyone involved in any FOSS project (linux or otherwise), your objective is to make your project the best it can be. In this context the endless variety of distributions and their philosophies is a great strength.
It's the same thing with trying to make the fediverse more popular. I'm glad people have found their way to communities they're happy with, but things were just fine before.
It's not wrong. If the only objective of Linux were to steal users from Windows or Mac, becoming a homogeneous dictatorial OS is the way to do it. Most people don't care about choice, and in fact having to choose is an anti feature. Apple's success proves this, but companies like Microsoft for the same reason: it's all a boring dystopia of sameness.
Linux's strength is diversity. It's both the only functioning communism on the planet, and the best evolutionary testbed for software. It's great for people who value freedom and choice; it's mostly a confusing mess for everyone who don't give a single shit how computers work, or which style that use - they want to be given something that works OOTB and always have it work the same way. They want to be told what to do, because honestly they can't be arsed to figure it out. This doesn't imply anything at all about the kind of people they are, they just aren't interested in computers.
I give no shits about how a car works; I don't care how many HP it has, I don't want to assemble and decide on every single component. I don't even like driving - it's just time out of my day which demands all of my attention, and which I'd rather spend doing something else. I absolutely hate the car buying experience - taking days to test drive and decide. I'd be just as happy to be able to look up "best car this year at this price point" and buy that.
For a great many people, computers are like cars are to me: a necessary evil.
So: it's not a bad expectation that Linux adoption would dramatically increase if it became a monopoly of software. If all the Gnome developers would stop wasting their time and work on KDE instead. (See how that sounds when you swap out "X11" and "Wayland" for "Gnome" and "KDE"? I see people making this argument all. The. Time.) But it'd become a lesser ecosystem.
How the Hell do people who think like this function in the supermarket where they have to make choices between many different breads for example?
I assume that under normal circumstances. you are intelligent enough to handle making a choice and have just been brainwashed by Microsoft and Apple into thinking that choice in an operating system is a bad thing.
Sorry if that comes off as aggressive, but the learnt helplessness of it makes me very angry.
You've been living off Nescafé your whole life, and your friend told you there's a whole world of artisanal types coffee out there. Your friend told you to try single origin -- robusta or arabica -- from Brazil, Columbia, Indonesia, Etiopia, and other regions, each with its own characteristics, whatever your palate prefer.
When you ran out of coffee, you went to the store. All that choices overwhelm you. Your friend was busy that day, and all you were told was just to pick whatever you like. At the same time, your body's already craving some caffeine, and you just need something for that. Well, there's that Nescafé you're already familiar with. So you just went with what you already know and love. After all, you don't know if you're gonna like what your friend recommended.
Yeah. but you're going to pick one like you've been recommended, try it and see if you like it. If not, you won't get it again and you'll try something else. There might be a moment of indecisiveness but it's not hard. If that overwhelms you, how do function in modern society?
You'd be surprised at how a lot of people function in a society. People taking up college majors without knowing about these studies. People getting expensive fashion items because their friends wear them. Some people even have kids just because they're told to.
Back to the coffee analogy, I'm sure you'd try the artisanal stuff when your friend have it served to your face. When you know 'what you're supposed to get', you may face uncertainty, especially with the fact you may have to go out of your way to get it. Perhaps you'd try it out and actually like it. Perhaps you'd still prefer your Nescafé as that complexion doesn't suit you and you're more familiar with that basic miserable taste.
Its like restaurants . you could go and some menu items you like and some you won't like. asking for a recommendation from the waiter is a pretty good bet.
I have to interject: It is not like bread, as it is a bigger commitment (as I dont want to distrohop for longer than a week) and also it is more complex to create an OS than to create a bread (so more manpower is needed). Choice is a good thing. But too much choice can be bad. Imagine someone is directing a "linux curious" person to distrowatch. There the newbie will be overwhelmed. Maybe not and he just clicks on a distro and tries it. Probably a bad idea as the change from his previous (corporate) OS is a big change already, now the newbie uses a distro which probably doesnt fit his needs.
My case is that, like with the fediverse, the different options hinder the wider adoption, as potential new users have a problem with it during onboarding. Which is a difficult time as is. Even for someone who is switching from Windows to MacOS, two polished and widely adopted OSes, they are gonna have a hard time. Now add the choice from dozens of distros and the very vocal linux community and the switch is impossible for many potential new linux-users.
I'd like to say that I am not brainwashed, I am currently using Debian+KDE in Dualboot wuth Windows and Linux Mint for the selfhosting server. (Yes I know, this is the wrong distro for a server, it was my first contact with linux so I just picked the most polpular among newbies. Which is kind of the point of the whole thread.)
I'm sorry, but the process is exactly the same. Pick one you've been recommended, pick one you like the look of, or pick one at random to try it. With pretty much every distro having a live environment, you don't need to install it to try it out. Hell, if you use distrosea, you don't even need to download it to try it. It's not rocket science, it's just that people are conditioned to think there shouldn't be choice in an operating system. I suppose it's fairer to say it's more like a car. See which ones you like the look of, try them out and make a decision.
tldr: For Linux adoption it would be better for devs to focus on 2 (“main”) distros which are very similar to Windows and macOS and then 2-3 further (“big”) distros which give a bit more room to experiment. All the other distros create confusion and analysis-paralysis for the user who wants to switch or wants to help others to do the switch.
This is a mythical man-month fallacy. If everyone who works on distributions focuses on just a handful of them, that does not mean development will go any faster or lead to better outcomes.
Also observe that majority of work which ends up in GNU/Linux systems is outside of distributions. And this work often ends up quite focused.
Linux Mint is not harder for Grandma than windows 10 was. Granny just is used to use windows. Same with children. With less tech people when talking about Linux or choices, I just talk and choose Mint. If they evolve, they will know better. (btw, This is exactly the path that old-schoolers take to become Mint users .)
When you come from world business models, efficiency, where marketing sacrifices all the values for profit, your ideas look rational. However, ideological point of view, does Linux necessary need those people ( who obviously needs Linux )? This is a free world, you can choose exploitation, abuse and inefficiency if you want - Microsoft or Apple.
You've given it a lot more thought than the average person pointing this out, so thanks, but ultimately the same stuff that makes Linux and Fediverse good is what prevents most people from adopting them, you can't really have it both ways, and when you try you just end up with the worst of all worlds like Canonical with Ubuntu and it's enshittification, GNOME with their extreme vision causing mass user flight to KDE, or .world having what seems to be a printer of dumb motherfuckers in any comment section.
I feel like there really are just 2 or 3 main distros for Linux adoption. Every article, forum, discussion, etc... it's always Mint, followed by either Fedora or Ubuntu. IMO distro is less important for converts than desktop environment.
I think the most important thing for adoption is actually little quality of life stuff.
The first question during installation should be "are you new to Linux" and if you select yes it doesn't ask you about file systems or partitions it just installs the goddamn operating system with a default configuration, and casual friendly software.
Photo and video thumbnails that just work.
An idiot proof way to get a video player with support for every video codec.
More GUI based "intermediate" applications. If Grandpa has to figure out samba config files just so he can open up his photos on his laptop he's going to second guess his decision.
An idiot proof way to get a video player with support for every video codec.
Is this really still a problem? I haven't used anything but Gentoo (and some Arch) for 18 years, so for me it hasn't been a problem for a long, long time. By now it should be clear that these patents are unenforceable and distros, especially non-corporate ones should just ignore them.
Kinda. It's not hard, but it's also not idiot proof.
On Fedora for example you just need to use RPM Fusion instead of the standard Fedora repos. The problem is that you need to know that you need to use RPM Fusion.
Fedora is a pretty common recommendation to new users (with good reason it's excellent) but plenty of casual users will run into that problem and decide that videos don't work right on Linux.
Your problem is that you're starting from the wrong premise: the primary goal of most people working on Linux is not to make more people switch to it, strange as that may sound, it's to create an operating system that they personally want to use. Which can mean a lot of different things, depending on the person. So it's inevitable that there are a lot of different distros, and the only reason there aren't even more is that most of the one-man shows that don't attract many users peter out and vanish after a few months or years.
I've personally always been of the opinion that it's great to have so many different options, and i also never understood why people get so stressed about choosing a distro. You can always switch to something else later if you find something better, but first you need to find out your likes and dislikes about a distribution to begin with. Pewdiepie said in his linux video "just pick one!", and that's how i went about it as well. When i saw an LTT video about trying linux instead if windows 11, they recommended PopOS, so that's what i chose. Ended up trying a bunch of different ones later, and as of right now i'm on Void linux.
There need to be a handful of distros with less settings, being more "fixed".
I personally like to being able to set everything how I like it.
But it just isnt necessary to have THAT many actively developed distros. If devs could drop 1/4 of the distros and redirect their efforts on bigger projects, those would profit massively.
There are two negatives to the “fragmentation” of Linux.
1 - application compatibility
2 - paralysis of choice
For the first, we need to put as much focus as possible on Flatpak and we need ONE independent App Store where app devs can distribute and users can subscribe.
For the second, the Linux community needs to agree on one or two distros that we agree should always be the recommendation for new users. I always recommend Mint. We could maybe have one more specifically for gamers.
But, overall, diversity is the great strength of Linux. Not only can it adapt to every niche but the is competition and innovation between distros. The entire ecosystem drives itself forward in a way that a “unified” platform cannot.
Thanks, you condensed my thoughts very well. The point with flatpak is very important. I used discovery by kde but it seemed not as polished as it should be. Not to say that there are better "stores". I hope the inclusion of flatpak/flathub into distros/DEs gets improved significantly and gets adapted wider.
I agree with the sentiment because it is a pain to find a distro which you want. But the reason for this is that Linux has given you the luxury to pick and choose what distro and DE you want. When you go to Windows or Mac, people just accept that it is what it is.
That being said, I will blame the Linux community to some extent for promoting "complicated" (like Arch) or too barebones distros (like Debian) to newbies. The shock of moving from Windows to Linux is already a hurdle for most. When you add the need for tinkering and troubleshooting from day one, I can see why people would quit.
We are indirectly focusing on a handful of "distros" as most distros ship with KDE, Gnome or something similar.
True! And for an enthusiast who wants to spend only a few days on finding a distro and setteling into it, like me, its nice to have only three (big) DEs, which you can test and choose in one day and then are set for the further journey.
Now "bundle" a distro to each DE and a newbie would have that experience for the whole distro-finding-experience
I am thinking this could be neat for people new to Linux to help them select a first distribution.
A few more points:
There are a lot of choices
There are also a lot of different valuable qualities.
Consequently, there are no distributions that are "good" or "bad".
It is nice to try out things! And trying out things will change what appeals to you.
That said, perhaps you don't want to try out too many things now, instead right now you'd prefer something that just works....
Also, your needs and your capabilities will change over time. If you are a young student who wants to learn programming, a pc gamer, or somebody who likes to learn and understand Linux in detail, they might be different from when you are a busy parent or a young professional which just needs to write job applications!
So, what matches your needs best will likely also change over time.
Finally, the choice of distributions is not an either-either or black-and-white thing. You can run Linux, and on top Windows in a Virtual Machine (basically an entire simulated computer). You also can run another Linux distribution in a virtual machine, which matches a specific use case.
There are too many choices. I’ve tried the chooser and at the end it gave me 9 distributions to choose from (i.e. nine distributions with no marked negatives). I’ve tried again and it gave me 13 distributions to choose from. This is absolutely useless for someone who knows nothing about Linux.
If someone selects ‘I have little or no knowledge about Linux’ it should go straight to recommending Linux Mint or with no other questions. Or maybe Bazzite if they selected gaming as main use case.
And if I select Windows experience, why doesn’t it mark Ubuntu with a negative as it has more of a MacOS feel?
last time it got posted here people dismissed it. I don't get why it got a positive reaction this time. It's a kinda cool app but also completely impractical. If you already know if you want systemd on your system or not, you aren't a noob and you already know what you want, or at least know what to search for.
This thing is more like one of the "What Power Ranger are you?" type of surveys.
I don't generally recommend opensuse. The package management always made me go back to arch or debian. I would recommend trying it if you have a spare pc or space for a vm though.
That's a poor statement to make without giving any evidence. I use both Debian and Opensuse for decades in production environments. Both have very mature package management tools. Can't remember that they have failed me ever. Back in the days Opensuse's early zypp had problems, but that was solved in 2008.
Former Green Beret (US Army special forces) and contractor, Anthony Aguilar, revealed the chilling orders from the Israeli military in an interview with US Senator Chris Van Hollen aired by his office on Tuesday.
Aguilar said that an Israeli lieutenant colonel ordered him to get the Palestinian children off a man’s shoulders, on which they were standing, to avoid being crushed by a crowd of starving people trying to retrieve aid.
“A Palestinian man had picked up some children to let them step on his shoulders to get onto a berm because they were being crushed. He [the Israeli officer] says, ‘Tell your men to get them down,’” Aguilar told Van Hollen. “I was like, ‘we got this under control’…they’re children.”
The Israeli officer erupted, Aguilar recalled, threatening, “Get them down now or I will.”
The Israeli military was preparing to gun down unarmed Palestinian children in Gaza, and a US mercenary firm told an employee that he was not allowed to stand in their way, according to a US military contractor hired to guard a Gaza aid site.
Slotkin recently went on Breaking Points and said she was open to cutting off "offensive" weapons to Israel and offering all kinds of other platitudes and pretty words.
Yesterday, Bernie Sanders introduced a resolution to ban offensive weapons to Israel which got a fairly large bit of Dem support.
I feel like I'm googling the wrong thing since I'm mostly getting start menu replacements and not a supplement. I want to click the ps button or a keyboard button and have a grid pop up over my apps that displays pinned apps/games that I can scroll through and launch with my controller or keyboard. Does something like that this exist?
Can't you just create a folder with links / shortcuts to all the applications and games and just open said folder with a click (or some kind of shortcut)?
Exactly! I harbor nostalgia for the old Windows 3 desktop icon grid, so I open a file manager window pointing to ~/Desktop and display the *.desktop shortcuts there as icons. This is done automatically when gdm starts. My file manager is PCManFM, which is a rip-off of nautilus. Double-clicking on an icon opens the shortcut — be it to a terminal or a graphical application. I have to alt-tab to the PCManFM window of course, so I need the keyboard. Then I have to double-click with the mouse. It’s keeping both hemispheres of the brain active: subject/verb, left/right. Presumably you can map your game controller's buttons to keyboard equivalents like , , and (or map your game controller's buttons to PCManFM's hot key config), which would allow you to navigate the PCManFM icon grid.
I want a dock/panel that goes away and pops up based on a shortcut, like slides on screen or pops up on top, rofis prob the move, like ddterm but for games
Rofi is certainly a great choice, though it relies on scripts to customize it to your needs. These scripts can be anywhere from extremely basic to insanely complex but you have to create them. Personaly I use it as: * an app launcher * a clipboard manager * an infobar to show things like the date/time, memory usage, disk space, battery level, wifi signal… * an omnibar to perform an internet search, quick units conversions * a calculator for simple math * a bookmark manager (list, open, edit, add, remove) * a password/2FA token manager (list, edit, add, remove, autofill internet fields) * a wifi manager * a vpn manager
While I try to share on this blog stuff that are a little bit more confidential than I think they should be, we will talk today about a famous program: rofi .
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
As a #Palestinian doctor living and working in #Israel, in the midst of a longstanding conflict, I learned during my studies and work that injustice has been done to many populations living here. The occupation and coercion that Israel exercises over the Palestinian population in the occupied territories and the policy of discrimination against the Palestinian minority living within Israel cause serious harm to the right to health of these populations. Control over territories, expulsion, dispossession, violence, restriction of movement, establishment of settlements and apartheid cause great suffering to the population, prevent access to medical care and directly affect their health.
I’m one of many Palestinian doctors in Israel. We’re being persecuted – but we won’t abandon our oath | Lina Qasem-Hassan
Lina Qasem-Hassan Wed 30 Jul 2025 08.00 EDT
As a #Palestinian doctor living and working in #Israel, in the midst of a longstanding conflict, I learned during my studies and work that injustice has been done to many populations living here. The occupation and coercion that Israel exercises over the Palestinian population in the occupied territories and the policy of discrimination against the Palestinian minority living within Israel cause serious harm to the right to health of these populations. Control over territories, expulsion, dispossession, violence, restriction of movement, establishment of settlements and apartheid cause great suffering to the population, prevent access to medical care and directly affect their health.
We’ve promised to provide equal care to all. Now we’re being punished for speaking out against the killing of medics and patients in Gaza, says Palestinian doctor Lina Qasem-Hassan
As a #Palestinian doctor living and working in #Israel, in the midst of a longstanding conflict, I learned during my studies and work that injustice has been done to many populations living here. The occupation and coercion that Israel exercises over the Palestinian population in the occupied territories and the policy of discrimination against the Palestinian minority living within Israel cause serious harm to the right to health of these populations. Control over territories, expulsion, dispossession, violence, restriction of movement, establishment of settlements and apartheid cause great suffering to the population, prevent access to medical care and directly affect their health.
I’m one of many Palestinian doctors in Israel. We’re being persecuted – but we won’t abandon our oath | Lina Qasem-Hassan
Lina Qasem-Hassan Wed 30 Jul 2025 08.00 EDT
As a #Palestinian doctor living and working in #Israel, in the midst of a longstanding conflict, I learned during my studies and work that injustice has been done to many populations living here. The occupation and coercion that Israel exercises over the Palestinian population in the occupied territories and the policy of discrimination against the Palestinian minority living within Israel cause serious harm to the right to health of these populations. Control over territories, expulsion, dispossession, violence, restriction of movement, establishment of settlements and apartheid cause great suffering to the population, prevent access to medical care and directly affect their health.
We’ve promised to provide equal care to all. Now we’re being punished for speaking out against the killing of medics and patients in Gaza, says Palestinian doctor Lina Qasem-Hassan
As a #Palestinian doctor living and working in #Israel, in the midst of a longstanding conflict, I learned during my studies and work that injustice has been done to many populations living here. The occupation and coercion that Israel exercises over the Palestinian population in the occupied territories and the policy of discrimination against the Palestinian minority living within Israel cause serious harm to the right to health of these populations. Control over territories, expulsion, dispossession, violence, restriction of movement, establishment of settlements and apartheid cause great suffering to the population, prevent access to medical care and directly affect their health.
We’ve promised to provide equal care to all. Now we’re being punished for speaking out against the killing of medics and patients in Gaza, says Palestinian doctor Lina Qasem-Hassan
No ceasefire will erase the smell of blood that clings to our memories. No ceasefire can bring back those we have lost. No one can compensate the orphans or widows. No one can delete the massacres, the death traps disguised as aid centers. No one can erase the images of bodies in pieces, of blood soaked into the floor, of children crushed beneath rubble, of injured and amputated people, of infants and fetuses killed in their mothers’ wombs, of starved people suffering from malnutrition. No one can make us forget the taste of nothing during starvation and the feeling of helplessness in front of seeing our futures destroyed.
Will Gaza Ever Know a Real Ceasefire, or Just a Pause Before the Next Bomb?
Huda Skaik July 30 2025, 7:00 a.m.
No ceasefire will erase the smell of blood that clings to our memories. No ceasefire can bring back those we have lost. No one can compensate the orphans or widows. No one can delete the massacres, the death traps disguised as aid centers. No one can erase the images of bodies in pieces, of blood soaked into the floor, of children crushed beneath rubble, of injured and amputated people, of infants and fetuses killed in their mothers’ wombs, of starved people suffering from malnutrition. No one can make us forget the taste of nothing during starvation and the feeling of helplessness in front of seeing our futures destroyed.
Israel (supported by Western powers and vassals) will never stop because the motivation behind it is lebensraum plus VC investment, and they're all amoral sociopaths. Would chattel slavery have ended in the US by just asking nicely? Or because the WASP man developed a conscience, randomly?
All this "Palestinian recognition" is just wind, lies and spin for internal optics, so people quiet down about the genocide for a second while they 'get the job done'.
No ceasefire will erase the smell of blood that clings to our memories. No ceasefire can bring back those we have lost. No one can compensate the orphans or widows. No one can delete the massacres, the death traps disguised as aid centers. No one can erase the images of bodies in pieces, of blood soaked into the floor, of children crushed beneath rubble, of injured and amputated people, of infants and fetuses killed in their mothers’ wombs, of starved people suffering from malnutrition. No one can make us forget the taste of nothing during starvation and the feeling of helplessness in front of seeing our futures destroyed.
Will Gaza Ever Know a Real Ceasefire, or Just a Pause Before the Next Bomb?
Huda Skaik July 30 2025, 7:00 a.m.
No ceasefire will erase the smell of blood that clings to our memories. No ceasefire can bring back those we have lost. No one can compensate the orphans or widows. No one can delete the massacres, the death traps disguised as aid centers. No one can erase the images of bodies in pieces, of blood soaked into the floor, of children crushed beneath rubble, of injured and amputated people, of infants and fetuses killed in their mothers’ wombs, of starved people suffering from malnutrition. No one can make us forget the taste of nothing during starvation and the feeling of helplessness in front of seeing our futures destroyed.
No ceasefire will erase the smell of blood that clings to our memories. No ceasefire can bring back those we have lost. No one can compensate the orphans or widows. No one can delete the massacres, the death traps disguised as aid centers. No one can erase the images of bodies in pieces, of blood soaked into the floor, of children crushed beneath rubble, of injured and amputated people, of infants and fetuses killed in their mothers’ wombs, of starved people suffering from malnutrition. No one can make us forget the taste of nothing during starvation and the feeling of helplessness in front of seeing our futures destroyed.
As the world watches Gaza starve, Republicans in Congress quietly advanced a new ban on funding a United Nations agency that delivers food aid to Palestinians.
The GOP-dominated House Appropriations Committee last week voted to bar financial support for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, long the main hub of aid distribution in Gaza.
If passed by Congress, the ban would reinforce a financial blockade on UNRWA that began last year as Israel subjected the agency to an intense pressure campaign.
The deprivation from starvation and siege is visible upon people’s faces. People are looking hollow-eyed and tired. We are suffering not just from hunger, but from abandonment. Palestinians have been turned into symbols of suffering and defiance, whereas what we want is not only to survive, but also to truly live and feel alive once more. Instead, as the whole world watches, for nearly two years we have been brutally murdered and tormented in the most horrific and innovative ways that a human mind can devise.
In Gaza, Hunger Has Overtaken Bombs as Israel’s Cruelest Weapon
Jul 30, 2025 Story by Heba Almaqadma
The deprivation from starvation and siege is visible upon people’s faces. People are looking hollow-eyed and tired. We are suffering not just from hunger, but from abandonment. Palestinians have been turned into symbols of suffering and defiance, whereas what we want is not only to survive, but also to truly live and feel alive once more. Instead, as the whole world watches, for nearly two years we have been brutally murdered and tormented in the most horrific and innovative ways that a human mind can devise.
"We do not need pity. We need pressure on those who are blocking food, those who remain silent, and those who still have the power to stop this but choose not to."
The deprivation from starvation and siege is visible upon people’s faces. People are looking hollow-eyed and tired. We are suffering not just from hunger, but from abandonment. Palestinians have been turned into symbols of suffering and defiance, whereas what we want is not only to survive, but also to truly live and feel alive once more. Instead, as the whole world watches, for nearly two years we have been brutally murdered and tormented in the most horrific and innovative ways that a human mind can devise.
In Gaza, Hunger Has Overtaken Bombs as Israel’s Cruelest Weapon
Jul 30, 2025 Story by Heba Almaqadma
The deprivation from starvation and siege is visible upon people’s faces. People are looking hollow-eyed and tired. We are suffering not just from hunger, but from abandonment. Palestinians have been turned into symbols of suffering and defiance, whereas what we want is not only to survive, but also to truly live and feel alive once more. Instead, as the whole world watches, for nearly two years we have been brutally murdered and tormented in the most horrific and innovative ways that a human mind can devise.
"We do not need pity. We need pressure on those who are blocking food, those who remain silent, and those who still have the power to stop this but choose not to."
The deprivation from starvation and siege is visible upon people’s faces. People are looking hollow-eyed and tired. We are suffering not just from hunger, but from abandonment. Palestinians have been turned into symbols of suffering and defiance, whereas what we want is not only to survive, but also to truly live and feel alive once more. Instead, as the whole world watches, for nearly two years we have been brutally murdered and tormented in the most horrific and innovative ways that a human mind can devise.
"We do not need pity. We need pressure on those who are blocking food, those who remain silent, and those who still have the power to stop this but choose not to."
Anyone look at the right ring finger (not the finger with the ring but the next one)? Or the right thumbnail for that matter? Is she wearing a thong, what is that black line? Does the right hip look like another thumbnail? How does anyone take this seriously? It's AI slop...
This is a never-ending struggle. Trying to educate people crushed by decades of propaganda, mis-education, and historical ignorance, who get their entire political identity from harry potter and marvel movies, takes near infinite patience.
Some people need a gentle hand, others need a slap on the wrist. For those who have already licensed themselves away from changing their minds through logic, refutation, or general dialogue, an open mind comes from personal, deteriorating conditions and the desire to learn how to escape them. All the patience in the world isn't enough for some people until the right conditions are met.
I was a far-right theocratic (Catholic) lunatic until about 2009. Many factors converged to slowly convert me to communism, but a big factor was indignation against the grave damage (from hateful obscurantism) to my personal life, including mental health and academic performance.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
Growing up in one of those neighbourhoods in Eastern Europe was absolutely incredible. It was one of the few bright spots of living a tough childhood during the economic collapse brought by economic shock therapy in the 90s. Tons of neighbour kids to make friends and play with. Kindergarten and school in walking distance. Green spaces all over the place. Most kids walked by themselves to school till the end of middle school. Then we went to high school by free or cheap public transit. Going from that to the GTA was shocking, even though the GTA is not even close to the worst planned North American metropolitan area.
I'd think HOA suburban American neighborhoods would be a better photo. Every fucking house looks the same and is some kind of white or slightly off white color. Boring as shit.
anglo-americans when repetitive buildings, but way, waaaaaaaaay less dense and also everything is too far away for foot or bike and there’s no public transit so you need to own a car: 😍😄🥰
absolutely but we can’t deny that most construction projects in anglo-america for the past few decades being single family homes for so-called upper-middle-class people exacerbates the problem
It's the other way around. Residential properties are used as investment vehicles, because it's profitable. It's profitable because the prices are high and rising. The prices are rising because of the housing crisis, which is caused by lack of supply. Lack of supply is caused, in large measure, because of restrictive zoning.
If there were a glut of housing on the market, prices would crater, and it wouldn't be profitable, investors wouldn't buy residential properties. They could still try to buy up all of the properties, and create artificial scarcity that way, but the idea is to make a profit, not just collect residential property for the sake of having it. As soon as they started selling or letting properties in large numbers, supply would rise and prices drop again.
It's the artificial scarcity mandated by law that's driving the high prices. This explanation is confirmed by many cities, like mine, that have a very low rate of private equity ownership, and still have a housing crisis.
On 9 July, Austrian parliamentarians passed a highly controversial bill legalising the deployment of state-sponsored spyware, known as the Federal Trojan (Bundestrojaner), to enable the interception of encrypted communications.
The Bundestrojaner bill would give law enforcement agencies the power to install malware on private devices (such as smartphones or laptops) to monitor encrypted messaging applications.
It would do so by amending several laws, including: the State Security and Intelligence Service Act; the Security Police Act; the Telecommunications Act;the Federal Administrative Court Act; and the Judges’ and Public Prosecutors’ Service Act.
The plan sparked widespread concern among privacy advocates, cybersecurity experts, and numerous civil society organisations.
The day before the vote more than 50 organisations, including Statewatch, wrote to legislators.
A joint letter (pdf) called on them to “vote against this dangerous instrument of state surveillance and against a historic step backwards for IT security in the information society.”
Legislators in Austria’s lower parliamentary house, the National Council, voted in favour of the bill, 105 to 71.
The interior minister Gerhard Karner, described it as a “special day for security.” Support for the bill came from the governing parties – the conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ), and most members of the liberal NEOS party.
Two NEOS MPs, Stephanie Krisper and Nikolaus Scherak, broke ranks to vote against the measure, alongside the Greens and the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ).
On 17 July, the Federal Council – the upper house of the legislature – voted by 40 to 19 not to object to the bill, completing the parliamentary process.
The bill now awaits unanimous approval from the governments of Austria’s nine states before it can become, a constitutional requirement triggered by the inclusion of certain provisions on the administrative judiciary.
Nevertheless, opposition parties and civil society organisations have said they will file legal challenges against the measures.
Government officials insist that the spyware will be restricted to targeting messaging apps and that broader system-wide searches will not be permitted.
However, technical experts have repeatedly warned that such limitations are practically unenforceable in real-world applications.
Spyware with the capability to intercept encrypted communications inevitably provides access to a wide array of personal information stored on the device, including photos, files, emails, contacts, and location data.
Critics note that this effectively bypasses all existing security protections, raising serious questions about the proportionality, necessity, and legality of such intrusive surveillance powers.
The current legislation includes some procedural safeguards, in an attempt to respond to critiques of previous state trojan proposals.
These include an extension of the review period for the Legal Protection Commissioner (from two weeks to three months), and transferring the authority to approve spyware deployment from a single judge to a panel of judges at the Federal Administrative Court.
However, the Legal Protection Commissioner is part of the Ministry of the Interior – the very same ministry that authorises and deploys the spyware – raising significant concerns about impartiality and conflicts of interest.
Furthermore, the intelligence agencies themselves conduct the mandatory trustworthiness assessments for the Commissioner and their deputies, further undermining the potential for effective and independent scrutiny of surveillance activities.
The bill was approved in the National Council despite extensive opposition from a broad range of civil society groups, professional bodies, and public institutions – including bar associations, universities, municipalities, press freedom advocates, and medical organisations.
Following the vote, civil society organisations describing the law as institutionalising state hacking by deliberately exploiting software vulnerabilities.
In a joint statement, they said that the government should be working to close these gaps to protect citizens from cyber threats.
The Bundestrojaner has a long and contentious legislative history in Austria. Initial attempts to introduce similar surveillance powers date back to 2016, but they were repeatedly rejected or delayed due to sustained criticism and concerns about privacy violations.
In 2019, Austria’s constitutional court struck down an earlier version of the law, ruling that surveillance of encrypted communications constituted a serious breach of fundamental privacy rights protected under the constitution.
Austria is set to legalise the use of highly-intrusive spyware by state authorities. The government has justified the law in the name of monitoring encrypted messaging applications.
This doesn't help with the type of exploits they're talking about (eg; Pegasus). Those gain access to your device itself, thus giving access to all apps on your device.
And just like that Austrian citizens will be the target of every hacker group on the world as the state malware will be a weak link in every device's security layers and once they crack it, they'll have deep access to thousands or maybe even millions of people's devices depending on ho w broadly police decide to deploy it (likely on every device of every person who is arrested, detained, or has any contact with police for any reason like perhaps just visiting prisoners or entering government buildings to renew a passport.)
deep access to thousands or maybe even millions of people's devices depending on ho w broadly police decide to deploy it
Maybe read the article before you post?
I get it, germans have tried to get Bundestrojaner through again and again, only to have explained why it's a bad idea. But still, it's not about mass surveillance.
I'm going with how police work currently in the US as a baseline. In the US, many jurisdictions require that you surrender your phone as a blanket policy, and if you refuse to unlock it, many have software to hack it. This has been determined generally to be legal as simply being detained or entering restricted areas is considered probable cause for a search, just like a physical search of your person or purse or whatever is legal.
Assuming Austria does something similar and now they additionally can install illicit malware, I think they absolutely will as a blanket policy.
Unfortunately, it has become the norm in the UK and much of the EU as well. I don't know Austria well, but ive heard it has a strong right-wing leaning in the police force, like most. Police will always prefer control due to the nature of the job and humans will always prefer easy solutions to their goals.
sounds like it's not supposed to be a general use tool, but instead for counterintelligence only:
The Ministry of the Interior anticipates submitting around 30 requests per year for the surveillance of unencrypted messages and between 5 to 15 requests for encrypted communications. If there are 30 instances of encrypted message monitoring within a single calendar year, the Interior Minister is obligated to inform a permanent subcommittee of the National Council, which is the directly elected chamber of the Austrian Parliament.
Each surveillance method will require case-by-case approval from the Federal Administrative Court. The process involves a legal protection officer from the Ministry of the Interior, who will have three business days to respond to any request. Following that, a panel of three judges from the Federal Administrative Court will review the case. In urgent situations, an individual judge may grant approval, supported by a 24-hour judicial service system.
If you have Windows, they can absolutely coordinate with Microsoft for stealth installs. If you’re using Linux, it’ll be a little tougher, but not impossible. Your processor (and probably bios) have government backdoors built in.
Really your best defense is them not caring enough to monitor you at that level. If you’re a target for surveillance by an intelligence agency, there’s absolutely nothing you can do.
The interior minister Gerhard Karner, described it as a “special day for security.”
This might be a Hollywood association with German accent, but feels like a really ominous quote. Like that sadistic guy in round eyeglasses in the Indiana Jones movie.
Been using the CLI more and more and for whatever reason it gives me more dopamine than using apps with a GUI and I'm curious about what else is out there since I was a windows user til 6 months ago.
Discovering ish and the ability to use alpine linux on my iphone, also has me curious if there is anything useful/fun out there that isn't openssh, ranger, and ffmpeg. (a-shell is still updated and comes with those two by default but doesn't have access to alpine repo and apk, uses its own iphone based thing) Tho im curious about cli tools/apps in general to use on my pc or over ssh, not just those that could be installed on my phone
I mostly use ffmpeg to convert video and compress stuff for size limits (so I can convert before sftp when away from my pc after the render finishes) Ranger file manager on phone since it can easily exit at a path, and yazi with the shell script that lets it exit at whatever path your on on pc.
Will update this list as people comment. - Conversion/Compression: ffmpeg - Email: mutt, neomut - File management: mc, nnn, ranger, yazi, sfm - File editor: vim, neovim - Git: lazygit - Piracy: ani-cli (anime) rip (music) - Pdf Management: pdftk (pdftk-idk, or stapler) - Python: rich, pythondialog, textual - Docker management : lazydocker - Performance monitor: btop, nvtop (nvidia), ncdu (disk usage) - Network management: nmtui - Web browser : browsh (firefox backend) - Video downloader: yt-dlp - Shell scripts: dialog, whiptail - Misc: netpbm (plaintext image creation) If you can't comment this post seems to be bugged for me at least, says I've deleted it and I can't reply to anyone.
inotify-tools has command-line utilities that can be used in a Bash script or a Bash one-liner to make arbitrary things "happen" when something "happens" to a file or directory. (Then the file is opened or written to or renamed or whatever.)
I probably should mention rsync. It's like a swiss army knife for copying files from one place to another. And it supports "keeping files syncronized" between two locations.
Of course, there's tons of stuff that you pretty much can't talk about Bash scripting without mentioning. Sed, awk, grep, find, etc.
Also, I totally relate about the terminal giving more dopamine. I kinda just hate going on a point-and-click adventure to do things like image editing or whatever. To the point that I've written a whole-ass domain-specific-language to do what I want rather than use Gimp. (And I'm working on another whole-ass domain-specific-language to do a traditionally-GUI-app sort of task.)
A bunch of GNU tools have added JSON output and it's so good. Like, GNU column can take tabular data and convert it into JSON really easily. It's like the perfect text stream.
You can save tons of time by adding aliases to your .gitconfig such as 'ga $fname' (where "fname" would be files you want to add) the alias for git add. You can also do the same thing with gc, gs, etc and if youre like me and you write dozens of lines of code a day, it can save you a lot of time.
helix . modal text editor similar to vim, but with less configuration required
Not only less configuration required, but also semantic navigation (jump around the AST directly with simple keybindings). I can't use a code editor without it now.
semantic navigation (jump around the AST directly with simple keybindings).
just searched up abstract syntax tree in helix, and i learned about syntax aware motions. how had i never heard of them before? they look very useful! thanks for mentioning that
Well, seeing them in the list like that rubs me the wrong way. 😅
Both of those come with a CLI, called git and docker respectively, which is the official way of using them. These CLIs might not be particularly sexy, depending on who you ask, but they're decent enough and worth learning, even if you go the lazy* route, since online resources all just explain the official CLIs and you might find yourself one day administering remote systems where you can't install additional software...
I rely on cli tools for a lot of things too. Here's a list:
tmux: terminal multiplexer zsh (with fzf zsh completion): shell fzf: fuzzy finder doas: sudo replacement bat: cat replacement fd: find replacement advcpmv: cp/mv replacement eza: ls replacement zenith: htop replacement trash-cli: trash management neomutt: email client (notmuch is a most recommended addition) neovim (and plugins): text/code editor buku: internet bookmarks manager tut: mastodon client ucollage: image viewer udevil: (un)mounting removable devices and networks without a password magic-tape: youtube search/download and more rofi: used with scripts to do a lot of things pass: password manager yazi: file explorer iwd: wireless manager khal: calendar and webdav sync with vdirsyncer taskjuggler: complete task manager newsboat: feed aggregator fwupd: firmware updater chawan: web browser ncmpcpp: mpd-client duf: disk usage abook: contacts manager
I have some of them detailed here. This GitHub also has a long list.
Feel free to tell them why and help fill us in on whats better lol, im sure no one minds finding better, or is it because youd rather use an app or website?
If you aren't aware, pbm represents an image with plaintext, which makes it great for when you want to easily create an image with code
I recently learned there is a whole suite of CLI tools which work with the format. Like conversion to/from png, scaling, and overlaying one image on top of another.
Good old nano is something i use a lot, although i am considering finally giving micro a try, heard a lot of good things about it, and i want something with a bit more features in the terminal, but i really hate vim keybinds. I also really like rmpc, which is an mpd client with album art support, though i am not using it anymore at the moment because i realized mpd wasn't really what i was looking for when it comes to music players.
Edit: also want to mention cyanrip. Really good cli cd ripper with a lot sane defaults, easy to use, and in terms of accuracy probably the closest thing to EAC on windows.
s-tui is also great. It's a tui stress testing utility. I still use it every now and then even if it's just to test if my fan curve is actually working by putting some load on the cpu.
I prefer dua over ncdu, specially when called interactively (dua i), since you can explore the results in parallel before it finishes scanning, while it updates asynchronously.
Oh boy. This is a rabbit hole which, once you fall into, there's no coming back out.
There is a world of terminal software. You can, quite reasonably, get entirely rid of X (and Wayland) and live in the console. Honestly, the reason I don't is only because there is no fully competent terminal web browser (although there are some quite good ones), and because anything having to do with graphics like photo management, or vector graphics drawing, is really where GUIs are useful. But for everything else, terminal clients are almost always superior.
Choosing a good terminal emulator is important, and the best one right now is Rio. It's fast, smaller memory footprint, and less CPU use than Wezterm or Kitty, and it supports ligatures, iTerm, and SIXEL graphics.
In that goes tmux, because it works over ssh and having consistent everywhere is handy, because it survives terminal and window manager crashes, and because you can open multiple clients in different windows on the same tmux session.
In that runs zsh, because it's the best shell. It's backwards-compatible to bash, but has a ton of extra features.
I'm conservative about replacing standard POSIX tools with new fad tools, because grep is literally everywhere (even BusyBox) and new things usually aren't; but ripgrep and fd are such nice improvements over grep and find I've been unable to resist. Helix is currently the best text editor. However, having a good familiarity with grep, find, and vi is IMHO critical, because they're the foundations.
My media player is ostui, which is an ncurses SubSonic client with synced lyrics and cover art support. I use catnip for visualization, because it uses less memory and CPU than cava. For task management I use a bespoke script (tdp) that use fzf with todo.txt files. I use gotop for system monitoring.
I try to use chawan for terminal web browsing, and it does do CSS layout better than most, and supports sixel image rendering, but it's often a chore so I mostly browse in Luakit, which is a GUI program.
rook is my secret service tool that uses a KeePassXC DB as the backing store, and provides credentials to everything that needs them.
vdirsyncer syncs my calendar and contracts to a VPS, and thence to my phone
mbsync syncs all of my email from my IMAP server, and I use notmuch to index and tag it
khard is a terminal address book that uses standard vcard directories
lbb is a super-fast address book search tool which also works on vcard directories
khal is a TUI calendar app, which works with vcal directories
aerc, which someone else mentioned, is a fantastic TUI email client that can use notmuch.
tasker is what I use for scheduled cron control; it uses standard crontab files.
devmon and udevil handle automounts of USB media
mosh is a UDP-based ssh, with interruptable sessions and network resilience
mpdris2-rs is the agent I use to hook up various media control tooling to ostui (which supports the mpris protocol) and other players - mpris is a sort of standardized glue for media players.
gomuks is an excellent TUI for Matrix
weechat is a TUI for IRC. I prefer gomuk's interface, but you can get a Matrix plugin for weechat if you want to use only one. I find I often have to restart weechat because otherwise it end up eating all of the memory; there's a memory leak, or something in it.
syncthing-daemon for syncing between almost everything
restic for backups
dinit handles all of my user task management, because systemd is fucking broken for user tasks. dinit is a better init system.
Almost every application I use is a cli or TUI client. The exceptions are the web browser, for reasons I've explained; Jami, which doesn't have a CLI client; Factorio, which is a game; and darktable for photo management. I'll also occasionally open Gimp or Inkscape for graphics, vlc for movies (which I could probably watch in the terminal, now that I think of it), and I usually view PDFs in a GUI client such as mupdf.
My philosophy on software is to use standards wherever possible. I avoid programs that insist on using their own DBs when there's a perfectly good standard, such as ics, maildir, and so on. It's just another form of vender lock-in. Hence notmuch (maildir), khard and lbb (directory of .ics), khal (directory of .vcs), rook (KeePass DB), and so on. This drives most of my tooling choices.
The suggestions in the comments are all nice, but the biggest game changer for me was nushell. Once you understand how it works there is no going back. I have saved so many hours already.
When going to other communities, respect their rules AND our rules when they are more restrictive. Do not give cause for others to de-federate our instance please.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
DEAR FRIENDS. IF YOU LIKE THIS TYPE OF CONTENT, SUPPORT SOUTHFRONT WORK: MONERO (XMR): 86yfEHs6pkoDEKCxc6MAnQX8cVHmzhYxMVrNuwKgNmqpWK8dDxjgGnK8PtUNJMA...
i remember seeing this meme around when the US tiktok ban -idea was confirmed and some usians who started to use similar chinese apps had actual conversations with actual chinese netizens. thankfully they brought back tiktok to the usians so they could keep drinking the capitalist imperialist koolaid. also i see the western liberals have attacked this with downvotes for daring to post anything that conflicts with their presupposed capitalistic white supremacy.
I originally provided this an alternative to the broken AUR packages.
However, it seems that Arch users would rather use broken packages and
keep complaining to me instead of their packager. I spe...
He has a point. Package managers are extremely stupid. Installing stuff on Linux is stupid. We need a 15th standard. Or one making all the existing ones work together.
That's basically what I do on Linux anyway except you have to give the install permissions and occasionally to tar -xyzabc and then build something and then add it to your path and then create a shortcut and then give it an icon.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
Reform voters think the new party co-founder is more intelligent, trustworthy, hard-working and principled than the prime minister, suggesting Starmer’s attempts to woo the right aren’t working. Rivkah Brown reports.
Does anyone know if these is an open source and privacy-focused alternative to xTiles? A friend of mine showed me this site where it's like Notion, but more visual and easier to use. It's looks really cool, but I wanted to know if there was something similar that's private and open source.
I looked into Logseq a while and saw comments that it was a little buggy, but that was awhile back, so I'll take a look at it again. Appflowy looks interesting at first glance, so I'll look further into it and see if it's a good alternatie. Affine seems to be interesting as well and could be a contender, as I see they have a vision board.
All these are great suggestions that I'll look further into. Thank you!
Over 300 UN staff killed, aid blocked, and UN facilities destroyed in Gaza by the Israeli regime—backed by the US—undermining and dismantling international law.
Quazatron
in reply to freeman • • •I've seen this opinion voiced quite a few times for the last 28 or so years I've been a Linux user.
Guess what? It's free and open source software. People work on what they feel like when they feel like if they feel like. You can't mandate "let's just have a couple of distros, think of the public!". It doesn't work like that. Yes, life is not perfect.
not quite01(they/them)
in reply to Quazatron • • •comfy
in reply to Quazatron • • •Furthermore, Linux (as a whole) is not a for-profit project, or a singular organization.
Desktop Linux is far from it's only purpose, and many of the devs are far more interested in their own use-cases: servers, embedded systems, supercomputers, phones, special purpose OSs. Wikipedia even has a page for the wide range of use beyond desktops and servers. So we can't simply treat devs as a unified group with a common goal like we can generally do with Microsoft, Apple, Google, Steam, etc. unless you pick a particular distro!
overview about Linux' uses
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)Quazatron
in reply to comfy • • •Exactly. I need Debian, Alpine, Manjaro, OpenWRT, MoOde Audio Player, Lakka and SteamOS.
They all serve different use cases. That's the beauty of it, the utter flexibility to turn it into whatever you need because you can.
freeman
in reply to comfy • • •Yes, sorry, that wasnt my intention.
When I talked about "Linux" or "distros" i only ment Desktop OS for personal use.
Sorry!
comfy
in reply to freeman • • •That's alright, and I'm also a little bit sorry for nitpicking! I just saw it as an opportunity to illustrate how complex this whole software mess is.
I'm not sure if you've come across it yet, but there's a well-known copypasta posted to satirize the way many Linux users will nitpick terms.
DAE /FOSS/
stallman-copypasta.github.iofreeman
in reply to comfy • • •non_burglar
in reply to freeman • • •It's fine.
Every Linux user goes through this, because the freedom means choice, and choice means lots of options.
freeman
in reply to Quazatron • • •Agree!
I dont want to dictate anyone and I understand that my rant wont change anything.
It was more about the hypothetical optimum "if we one wanted to optimize for user-share of the desktop OS market", then there should be fewer but better distros.
Quazatron
in reply to freeman • • •My feeling on this is that or the "general public desktop" use case we have to defer to corporate supported distros (RedHat, Ubuntu, Suse), because they have to work with hardware vendors that are typically averse to the idea of sharing driver code, and you have to make sure your desktop runs smoothly on your average PC.
I don't see it happening, honestly.
smeg
in reply to freeman • • •SMillerNL
in reply to freeman • • •Standards
xkcdiii
in reply to SMillerNL • • •freeman
in reply to SMillerNL • • •SMillerNL
in reply to freeman • • •Bjarne
in reply to freeman • • •I guess its in the nature of open source. However really need to get on top of the search results of "install linux". I like the End of 10 campaign, however i also have just noticed that in their install guide they don't specify where to get Linux exactly just
End of 10
End of 10iii
in reply to freeman • • •Agreed that that's the case, but don't quite agree that that's a problem
freeman
in reply to iii • • •It is a problem if the goal is to increase the "personal desktop OS marketshare".
But diversity is a good thing for itself I agree. I have the feeling that it is a bit sad that it seems that there isnt one or two "main" distros, which one could recommend that tech illiterate family member.
mina86
in reply to freeman • • •The problem isn’t diversity of distributions. The problems are people
who go on describing history of GNU/Linux when a newbie asks them what
distribution to start with; and ‘top 10 Linux distributions’ articles
which litter the Internet. Just the other day someone shared a link
to Distrochooser, a website which
gives newbies ten distributions to pick from.
When a newbie asks about Linux, point them at Linux Mint Cinnamon
Edition and that’s it. Or at most ask if their primary use-case is
playing games in which case recommend Bazzite. That solves the
‘problem’ of distribution proliferation.
See also New to Linux? Stick To These Rules When Picking Distro.
New to Linux? Stick To These Rules When Picking Distro
Bobby Borisov (Linuxiac)Pat_Riot
in reply to mina86 • • •iii
in reply to freeman • • •I've given up as their thinking is so fundamentally different, and they refuse to meet even one inch towards the middle 😀
majster
in reply to freeman • • •Rentlar
in reply to freeman • • •I think this is a great unpopular opinion. TL:DR; In a similar sense to Lemmy/Fediverse vs. Reddit, the diversity of setups and software with some common elements is part of the point.
::: spoiler the rest of my long comment
Many of the dev teams have different philosophies and aims, and they aren't being paid to work together, let alone if they're receiving any money at all.
Ubuntu kind of was the normie out-of-the-box distro previously, but people always had a bone to pick with Canonical, be it with systemd, their Amazon ad stuff or with snaps.
On the gaming side, Valve helped immensely with the commercial aspect, boosting tireless efforts by community developers of projects like DXVK and Wine to make Linux gaming viable. Valve was trying long before the Steam Deck. In 2013 they released the Linux Steam Client and their port of Portal. Later they released the Steam Machine which wasn't too successful but along with the Steam Controller was a precursor to the Deck. Now with arch-based HoloOS, Proton, as well as the sandbox system, games built for Windows can easily be made to work on most Linux distros without worrying about library dependencies or other issues that were common from the way various distros are built and managed.
My main point of contention is that having everything around a handful of distros makes it vulnerable to single points of failure and more of a target for malicious exploits. See how the Crowdstrike incident bricked a huge number of servers and stopped many vital buildings from operating for a few days? Linux, even it its current state, is not immune to that, as some important and widely-used libraries have been targeted by malicious actors and nearly succeeded.
From an enduser perspective, as long as you can access the apps you want and do the things you want to with your computer, it's mostly the look of the desktop environment rather than anything under the hood that matters to most people. The big ones are GNOME, KDE, Cinnamon, XFCE, MATE. Perhaps user guides could be made to better transition people to not feel lost, but there are both legitimate reasons (like accessibility) and others as a matter of taste to select a particular desktop environment.
:::
What we know about the xz Utils backdoor that almost infected the world
Dan Goodin (Ars Technica)azuth
in reply to freeman • • •Thank God you are not forbidding anyone from working on their own distros.
Can you elaborate on how we are going to get Ubuntu and Fedora developers to work on Debian and Arch instead? Are we going to buy out IBM and Canonical?
FrostyPolicy
in reply to freeman • • •FOSS developers don't develop distros. Distro maintainers package that software into distros. Linux, KDE, GNOME, systemd, GNU software etc are just single pieces of the puzzle developed individually.
There's always a learning curve with new things (software or otherwise). In case of Win why would we want to go back in time in usability? E.g. Cinnamon and KDE are far superior in UX compared to Windows. Also in Linux distros you can actually fix problems unlike in windows.
I've been using Linux as a daily driver since 2018 (thanks Valve and Proton) and in my experience things just work (if they are supported) and thing like headset don't just randomly stop working because reasons unlike in windows. In windows you then run some troubleshooter that can't fix it, reboot several times while praying to whatever gods you like and hope for the best. If that doesn't help you start searching online and only find vague instructions that might help but no solutions.
What compatibility? If user insists on running some windows only software it's expected to run into problems.
So? Even windows and macOS has a command line. It's easier to help with problems if you instruct them to run some command (though running random commands of the web is not really a good idea security wise) then trying to navigate them to some gui which might not exist in their distro. Even in windows users are told to run commands in the command line to try and fix problems e.g.
sfc /scannowanddism <whatever>.In AD 2025 this is true in most cases. People just use social media, some webmail, youtube, read news etc. The OS is just there to start the web browser.
katy ✨
in reply to freeman • • •Buffalox
in reply to freeman • • •What you say could be boiled down to:
If just everybody concentrated on making quality software for Windows, we could have much more quality software for Windows.
Your view is common but irrational.
The concept is described by Linus Torvalds as "Scratch your own itch". The richness and diversity of Linux distros is a strength not a weakness.
If you want to make a Barbie themed distro you can. And if you want to, why should anyone try to prevent you?
If development was concentrated around fewer distros, it is far from a sure thing this development would go in the direction you would personally want. You would just have fewer options.
null_dot
in reply to freeman • • •You're laboring under the common misconception that enticing windows and macos users is the objective. It's not.
For anyone involved in any FOSS project (linux or otherwise), your objective is to make your project the best it can be. In this context the endless variety of distributions and their philosophies is a great strength.
BlueSquid0741
in reply to null_dot • • •grrgyle
in reply to BlueSquid0741 • • •𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍
in reply to BlueSquid0741 • • •It's not wrong. If the only objective of Linux were to steal users from Windows or Mac, becoming a homogeneous dictatorial OS is the way to do it. Most people don't care about choice, and in fact having to choose is an anti feature. Apple's success proves this, but companies like Microsoft for the same reason: it's all a boring dystopia of sameness.
Linux's strength is diversity. It's both the only functioning communism on the planet, and the best evolutionary testbed for software. It's great for people who value freedom and choice; it's mostly a confusing mess for everyone who don't give a single shit how computers work, or which style that use - they want to be given something that works OOTB and always have it work the same way. They want to be told what to do, because honestly they can't be arsed to figure it out. This doesn't imply anything at all about the kind of people they are, they just aren't interested in computers.
I give no shits about how a car works; I don't care how many HP it has, I don't want to assemble and decide on every single component. I don't even like driving - it's just time out of my day which demands all of my attention, and which I'd rather spend doing something else. I absolutely hate the car buying experience - taking days to test drive and decide. I'd be just as happy to be able to look up "best car this year at this price point" and buy that.
For a great many people, computers are like cars are to me: a necessary evil.
So: it's not a bad expectation that Linux adoption would dramatically increase if it became a monopoly of software. If all the Gnome developers would stop wasting their time and work on KDE instead. (See how that sounds when you swap out "X11" and "Wayland" for "Gnome" and "KDE"? I see people making this argument all. The. Time.) But it'd become a lesser ecosystem.
Monocultures suck.
MyNameIsRichard
in reply to freeman • • •How the Hell do people who think like this function in the supermarket where they have to make choices between many different breads for example?
I assume that under normal circumstances. you are intelligent enough to handle making a choice and have just been brainwashed by Microsoft and Apple into thinking that choice in an operating system is a bad thing.
Sorry if that comes off as aggressive, but the learnt helplessness of it makes me very angry.
Edit: add missing word
pastermil
in reply to MyNameIsRichard • • •Imagine this:
You've been living off Nescafé your whole life, and your friend told you there's a whole world of artisanal types coffee out there. Your friend told you to try single origin -- robusta or arabica -- from Brazil, Columbia, Indonesia, Etiopia, and other regions, each with its own characteristics, whatever your palate prefer.
When you ran out of coffee, you went to the store. All that choices overwhelm you. Your friend was busy that day, and all you were told was just to pick whatever you like. At the same time, your body's already craving some caffeine, and you just need something for that. Well, there's that Nescafé you're already familiar with. So you just went with what you already know and love. After all, you don't know if you're gonna like what your friend recommended.
MyNameIsRichard
in reply to pastermil • • •pastermil
in reply to MyNameIsRichard • • •You'd be surprised at how a lot of people function in a society. People taking up college majors without knowing about these studies. People getting expensive fashion items because their friends wear them. Some people even have kids just because they're told to.
Back to the coffee analogy, I'm sure you'd try the artisanal stuff when your friend have it served to your face. When you know 'what you're supposed to get', you may face uncertainty, especially with the fact you may have to go out of your way to get it. Perhaps you'd try it out and actually like it. Perhaps you'd still prefer your Nescafé as that complexion doesn't suit you and you're more familiar with that basic miserable taste.
wiki_me
in reply to pastermil • • •pastermil
in reply to wiki_me • • •non_burglar
in reply to pastermil • • •That's just part of being an adult? Pick one. If you don't like it, pick a different one next time.
Live your life, ffs. Why does this need to be explained?
pastermil
in reply to non_burglar • • •non_burglar
in reply to pastermil • • •freeman
in reply to MyNameIsRichard • • •I have to interject:
It is not like bread, as it is a bigger commitment (as I dont want to distrohop for longer than a week) and also it is more complex to create an OS than to create a bread (so more manpower is needed).
Choice is a good thing. But too much choice can be bad. Imagine someone is directing a "linux curious" person to distrowatch. There the newbie will be overwhelmed. Maybe not and he just clicks on a distro and tries it. Probably a bad idea as the change from his previous (corporate) OS is a big change already, now the newbie uses a distro which probably doesnt fit his needs.
My case is that, like with the fediverse, the different options hinder the wider adoption, as potential new users have a problem with it during onboarding. Which is a difficult time as is. Even for someone who is switching from Windows to MacOS, two polished and widely adopted OSes, they are gonna have a hard time.
Now add the choice from dozens of distros and the very vocal linux community and the switch is impossible for many potential new linux-users.
I'd like to say that I am not brainwashed, I am currently using Debian+KDE in Dualboot wuth Windows and Linux Mint for the selfhosting server. (Yes I know, this is the wrong distro for a server, it was my first contact with linux so I just picked the most polpular among newbies. Which is kind of the point of the whole thread.)
MyNameIsRichard
in reply to freeman • • •mina86
in reply to freeman • • •This is a mythical man-month fallacy. If everyone who works on
distributions focuses on just a handful of them, that does not mean
development will go any faster or lead to better outcomes.
Also observe that majority of work which ends up in GNU/Linux systems
is outside of distributions. And this work often ends up quite
focused.
Tapionpoika
in reply to freeman • • •Linux Mint is not harder for Grandma than windows 10 was. Granny just is used to use windows. Same with children. With less tech people when talking about Linux or choices, I just talk and choose Mint. If they evolve, they will know better. (btw, This is exactly the path that old-schoolers take to become Mint users .)
When you come from world business models, efficiency, where marketing sacrifices all the values for profit, your ideas look rational. However, ideological point of view, does Linux necessary need those people ( who obviously needs Linux )? This is a free world, you can choose exploitation, abuse and inefficiency if you want - Microsoft or Apple.
LainTrain
in reply to freeman • • •obsoleteacct
in reply to freeman • • •I feel like there really are just 2 or 3 main distros for Linux adoption. Every article, forum, discussion, etc... it's always Mint, followed by either Fedora or Ubuntu. IMO distro is less important for converts than desktop environment.
I think the most important thing for adoption is actually little quality of life stuff.
Obin
in reply to obsoleteacct • • •Is this really still a problem? I haven't used anything but Gentoo (and some Arch) for 18 years, so for me it hasn't been a problem for a long, long time. By now it should be clear that these patents are unenforceable and distros, especially non-corporate ones should just ignore them.
obsoleteacct
in reply to Obin • • •Kinda. It's not hard, but it's also not idiot proof.
On Fedora for example you just need to use RPM Fusion instead of the standard Fedora repos. The problem is that you need to know that you need to use RPM Fusion.
Fedora is a pretty common recommendation to new users (with good reason it's excellent) but plenty of casual users will run into that problem and decide that videos don't work right on Linux.
nyan
in reply to freeman • • •freeman
in reply to nyan • • •juipeltje
in reply to freeman • • •Doomsider
in reply to freeman • • •freeman
in reply to Doomsider • • •No corporate control, not less options.
There need to be a handful of distros with less settings, being more "fixed".
I personally like to being able to set everything how I like it.
But it just isnt necessary to have THAT many actively developed distros. If devs could drop 1/4 of the distros and redirect their efforts on bigger projects, those would profit massively.
LeFantome
in reply to freeman • • •There are two negatives to the “fragmentation” of Linux.
1 - application compatibility
2 - paralysis of choice
For the first, we need to put as much focus as possible on Flatpak and we need ONE independent App Store where app devs can distribute and users can subscribe.
For the second, the Linux community needs to agree on one or two distros that we agree should always be the recommendation for new users. I always recommend Mint. We could maybe have one more specifically for gamers.
But, overall, diversity is the great strength of Linux. Not only can it adapt to every niche but the is competition and innovation between distros. The entire ecosystem drives itself forward in a way that a “unified” platform cannot.
freeman
in reply to LeFantome • • •The point with flatpak is very important. I used discovery by kde but it seemed not as polished as it should be. Not to say that there are better "stores". I hope the inclusion of flatpak/flathub into distros/DEs gets improved significantly and gets adapted wider.
Phoenixz
in reply to freeman • • •npdean
in reply to freeman • • •I agree with the sentiment because it is a pain to find a distro which you want. But the reason for this is that Linux has given you the luxury to pick and choose what distro and DE you want. When you go to Windows or Mac, people just accept that it is what it is.
That being said, I will blame the Linux community to some extent for promoting "complicated" (like Arch) or too barebones distros (like Debian) to newbies. The shock of moving from Windows to Linux is already a hurdle for most. When you add the need for tinkering and troubleshooting from day one, I can see why people would quit.
We are indirectly focusing on a handful of "distros" as most distros ship with KDE, Gnome or something similar.
freeman
in reply to npdean • • •True!
And for an enthusiast who wants to spend only a few days on finding a distro and setteling into it, like me, its nice to have only three (big) DEs, which you can test and choose in one day and then are set for the further journey.
Now "bundle" a distro to each DE and a newbie would have that experience for the whole distro-finding-experience