Russ Vought is Trump’s shutdown hero. His neighbors think his work is "abhorrent."
The people living near Trump’s “grim reaper” of government cuts have put up signs letting him know they stand with federal workers.
The budget chief has been in the spotlight lately as Trump’s shutdown enforcer. He is pressing on with threats to permanently cut federal workers en masse during this crisis. It is part of his long-held dream of shrinking the federal government and giving the president unrestrained powers. Vought’s combination of bureaucratic know-how and hardline ideology has made him a star in right-wing circles.
But on the quiet, residential street tucked in the Virginia suburb where Vought lives, the perception of him and his role in the shutdown is less than favorable. Several homes in the neighborhood have a yard sign in the front proudly declaring: “This house supports federal workers.” That includes the house right next door to his.
Russ Vought is Trump’s shutdown hero. His neighbors think his work is "abhorrent."
The people living near Trump's "grim reaper" of government cuts have put up signs letting him know they stand with federal workers.Mother Jones
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Introducing KRetro: a Libretro game emulator from KDE! (Alpha Release)
Introducing KRetro: a Libretro game emulator from KDE! (Alpha Release)
The first KRetro Alpha Release is here! KRetro is a libretro frontend from KDE written in Qt with Kirigami! That means when given both a libretro core, and a game cartridge/disk ROM, it plays your favourite games.Seshan.xyz Blog
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Convocation à l’Assemblée Générale Extraordinaire
Le comité du HTTPS-VD vous invite chaleureusement à son Assemblée Générale qui aura lieu le 19 octobre à 10hau local de la SDMB, à la Rue Caroline 16, à Lausanne. Cette séance sera principalement consacrée aux prises de position sur les votations du 30 novembre 2025, tant au niveau fédéral que cantonal.
Votre présence et votre voix sont précieuses pour faire connaître nos engagements et nos valeurs sur les objets de votation. Alors n’oubliez pas de payer votre cotisation et rendez-vous dimanche 19 octobre!
mobilisons.ch/events/69c29e7d-…
Horaire:
- 9:45 – Accréditations
- 10:00 – Assemblée Générale
- 12:00 – Repas
Accueil et administration
- Désignation des organes de l’assemblée
- Approbation du règlement d’assemblée
- Motions d’ordre
- Acceptation de l’ordre du jour
- Lecture et approbation ou modification du procès-verbal de l’Assemblée Générale précédente
Assemblée ordinaire
- Modifications des statuts
- Rapport de présidence
- Rapport de trésorerie
- Élection du comité
Élections ou votations
Votations fédérales du 30 novembre 2025
- Initiative populaire « Pour une Suisse qui s’engage (initiative service citoyen) ».
- Initiative populaire « Pour une politique climatique sociale financée de manière juste fiscalement (initiative pour l’avenir) ».
Votations cantonales du 30 novembre 2025
- Modification des articles 74 et 75 de la Constitution du Canton de Vaud pour que toutes les Vaudoises et tous les Vaudois, y compris les Vaudois de l’étranger, puissent élire les membres du Conseil des États ;
- Modification des articles 74 et 142 de la Constitution du Canton de Vaud ainsi que l’ajout de l’article 179d visant à mettre un terme aux discriminations en matière de droits politiques contre les personnes atteintes de troubles psychiques ;
- Initiative populaire « Pour des droits politiques pour celles et ceux qui vivent ici ».
vd.ch/actualites/decisions-du-…
Divers
Clôture et annonces
Assemblée Générale extraordinaire
Le comité a le plaisir de vous inviter à son assemblée générale. Nous vous rappelons que vous êtes les bienvenus parmi nous et que nous avons besoin de votre participation pour exister.mobilisons.ch
Hamas’s Strategic Gamble
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/37120551
Jeremy Scahill
Oct 05, 2025
There was broad consensus among a wide range of Palestinian factions and parties that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad had the authority to negotiate an end to the active war in Gaza, according to several sources who participated in the discussions. There was also agreement that Hamas alone did not have a mandate to negotiate terms that would impact what the negotiators called issues related to the Palestinian homeland.“Regarding the resistance factions, our jurisdiction is concerning matters of prisoner exchanges in return for halting the aggression, withdrawal, the entry of aid, and stopping the policy of displacement against our people,” said Mohammed Al-Hindi, the chief political negotiator for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in an interview with Drop Site. “As for the national issues, the resistance factions are not authorized to speak on them alone, as these concern all factions and forces of the Palestinian people everywhere.”
The challenge before the negotiators was how to craft a response to Trump that would assert the Palestinian right to self-determination while persuading the erratic U.S. president to force Israel to cease its genocidal war.
Hamas’s Strategic Gamble
Jeremy Scahill
Oct 05, 2025There was broad consensus among a wide range of Palestinian factions and parties that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad had the authority to negotiate an end to the active war in Gaza, according to several sources who participated in the discussions. There was also agreement that Hamas alone did not have a mandate to negotiate terms that would impact what the negotiators called issues related to the Palestinian homeland.“Regarding the resistance factions, our jurisdiction is concerning matters of prisoner exchanges in return for halting the aggression, withdrawal, the entry of aid, and stopping the policy of displacement against our people,” said Mohammed Al-Hindi, the chief political negotiator for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in an interview with Drop Site. “As for the national issues, the resistance factions are not authorized to speak on them alone, as these concern all factions and forces of the Palestinian people everywhere.”
The challenge before the negotiators was how to craft a response to Trump that would assert the Palestinian right to self-determination while persuading the erratic U.S. president to force Israel to cease its genocidal war.
Hamas’s Strategic Gamble
While President Trump enthusiastically welcomed Hamas’s response to his Gaza plan, the White House and Israel deal in deception.Jeremy Scahill (Drop Site News)
Hamas’s Strategic Gamble
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/37120551
Jeremy Scahill
Oct 05, 2025
There was broad consensus among a wide range of Palestinian factions and parties that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad had the authority to negotiate an end to the active war in Gaza, according to several sources who participated in the discussions. There was also agreement that Hamas alone did not have a mandate to negotiate terms that would impact what the negotiators called issues related to the Palestinian homeland.“Regarding the resistance factions, our jurisdiction is concerning matters of prisoner exchanges in return for halting the aggression, withdrawal, the entry of aid, and stopping the policy of displacement against our people,” said Mohammed Al-Hindi, the chief political negotiator for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in an interview with Drop Site. “As for the national issues, the resistance factions are not authorized to speak on them alone, as these concern all factions and forces of the Palestinian people everywhere.”
The challenge before the negotiators was how to craft a response to Trump that would assert the Palestinian right to self-determination while persuading the erratic U.S. president to force Israel to cease its genocidal war.
Hamas’s Strategic Gamble
Jeremy Scahill
Oct 05, 2025There was broad consensus among a wide range of Palestinian factions and parties that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad had the authority to negotiate an end to the active war in Gaza, according to several sources who participated in the discussions. There was also agreement that Hamas alone did not have a mandate to negotiate terms that would impact what the negotiators called issues related to the Palestinian homeland.“Regarding the resistance factions, our jurisdiction is concerning matters of prisoner exchanges in return for halting the aggression, withdrawal, the entry of aid, and stopping the policy of displacement against our people,” said Mohammed Al-Hindi, the chief political negotiator for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in an interview with Drop Site. “As for the national issues, the resistance factions are not authorized to speak on them alone, as these concern all factions and forces of the Palestinian people everywhere.”
The challenge before the negotiators was how to craft a response to Trump that would assert the Palestinian right to self-determination while persuading the erratic U.S. president to force Israel to cease its genocidal war.
Hamas’s Strategic Gamble
While President Trump enthusiastically welcomed Hamas’s response to his Gaza plan, the White House and Israel deal in deception.Jeremy Scahill (Drop Site News)
Another zypper dup, another outdated Nvidia kernel driver
Hamas’s Strategic Gamble
Jeremy Scahill
Oct 05, 2025
There was broad consensus among a wide range of Palestinian factions and parties that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad had the authority to negotiate an end to the active war in Gaza, according to several sources who participated in the discussions. There was also agreement that Hamas alone did not have a mandate to negotiate terms that would impact what the negotiators called issues related to the Palestinian homeland.“Regarding the resistance factions, our jurisdiction is concerning matters of prisoner exchanges in return for halting the aggression, withdrawal, the entry of aid, and stopping the policy of displacement against our people,” said Mohammed Al-Hindi, the chief political negotiator for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in an interview with Drop Site. “As for the national issues, the resistance factions are not authorized to speak on them alone, as these concern all factions and forces of the Palestinian people everywhere.”
The challenge before the negotiators was how to craft a response to Trump that would assert the Palestinian right to self-determination while persuading the erratic U.S. president to force Israel to cease its genocidal war.
Hamas’s Strategic Gamble
While President Trump enthusiastically welcomed Hamas’s response to his Gaza plan, the White House and Israel deal in deception.Jeremy Scahill (Drop Site News)
Americans Are Using PTO to Sleep, Not for Vacation—Report
An Amerisleep.com survey revealed that 37 percent of Americans used vacation days in the past year just to rest.Suzanne Blake (Newsweek)
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Despite the clickbait headline this isn't open source
Open Printer will use the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license
The NC license isn't open source, it violates point six of the OSD
The Open Source Definition
Introduction Open source doesn’t just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open source software must comply with the following criteria: 1. Free Redistribution The license shall…Open Source Initiative
Open source is generally about the code, not the hardware, even less manufacturing. OSHW (hence the clarification even though a bit longer) is about the hardware and has specific requirements in order to get the label and ID, e.g certification.oshwa.org/de0000… and process certification.oshwa.org/proces…
AFAIK there is no terms that means open source + OSHW but I'd love to learn if there is one and apologize in advance if I missed that.
Anyway as I'm interested in the project, which part is proprietary exactly? In theory as they sell via CrowdSupply crowdsupply.com/apply it should be both OSHW and open source but I didn't dig.
OSHWA Certification Process
This guide is intended to be used as a reference to best practices to ensure that your projects comply with the definition of Open Source Hardware.certification.oshwa.org
Thanks, I just checked crowdsupply.com/open-tools/ope… and its says "Open Printer will use the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license for all of its files, including electronics and mechanical design files, firmware code, and the bill of materials." so I don't think that's related to the source code but rather the resulting binary of the built firmware.
The latest CrowdSupply project I bought was the PGB-1 and they did realize their firmware source code github.com/wee-noise-makers/WN… and as GPL3 so I assume they will clarify that before starting the crowd funding campaign. I don't think they can, even if they wanted to, have a CS project without releasing the source code.
Edit: to be safe I asked on the CS Discord for clarification.
Open Printer
Finally, an open hardware printer you can actually understand, repair, and upgradeCrowd Supply
Can’t give away free ink, but can’t compete either. That was my point.
Can’t sell spare parts for a good price
They will use CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Which means it's not open source, and no-one else can sell replacement cartridges, parts etc.
It might still be a good printer and enjoyed by some, but it really annoys me when companies mix these terms up, almost certainly deliberately.
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Isn't it about documentation or design rather than code or hardware? Typically CC isn't used for software or hardware.
from their own page
Open Printer will use the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license for all of its files, including electronics and mechanical design files, firmware code, and the bill of materials.
While maybe it's not self repairable (did not break down since I bought it years back so I have not yet tried) other than nozzle clogging which once happened but is an easy fix. It's hardly customizable which have not been a limitation so far. So i'm happy with my Epson ET printer that takes any ink I feed it.
Þ is a thorn. It makes a th sound, as in the or Thor, also written as þe and Þor. When using a printing press most typesetters did not have a thorn, so a y was used as a replacement, causing things like ye oldde, rather than the oldde (þe oldde).
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It's technically more money upfront, but you're not just buying the printer itself: you're also buying the starter ink/toner cartridges that come with the device. The starter toner gives you vastly more pages than the starter ink, and it basically never goes bad. According to Brother, the size of a starter toner cartridge is 1000 A4 pages. According to HP, their Deskjet and Envy starter cartridges print about 150 and 250 pages, respectively.
So that higher upfront cost doesn't just go into a better, more efficient machine; it also goes into quadruple the starting pages or more. There are people who could seriously never print more than 1000 pages, whereas the starter for a Deskjet is so small that you practically ought to buy a spare cartridge alongside the printer for when it near-immediately runs out.
Basically, if I'm not flat-ass broke, I'm paying another $63 upfront for an XL ink cartridge from HP for one of these printers. And what's the page yield? 430. I'm still not even near the starter toner cartridge page capacity after spending an extra $63 on ink. To me, the upfront cost of an inkjet printer is pragmatically higher unless I'm so boots-theory-of-economics broke that all I can afford is the printer unit and only print a few pages a month tops.
Setup Cartridge Page Yields | HP® Official Site
Determine the number of pages your printer or cartridge can produce. Find the page yield for specific Inkjet and LaserJet printers.www8.hp.com
Unless something about inkjet has improved in the 15 years since I was more inclined to know everything about them, the "goes bad" is what anyone with a brain should be focusing on. The first time you use a cartridge to print, it has a shelf life. It gunks up, prompting cleaning cycles that use dozens of pages worth of ink. If you only print a few pages a month, there's a good chance you're getting <40 pages out of that $63 cartridge.
I have a Brother DCP-7065DN, paid $64 for it in Feb 2014 (obviously a very good deal), page counter reads 3626. We're on toner #3 including the starter, first was replaced in 2019, second in July 2025. Toner was $55 each.
I hope there aren't people seriously advocating for inkjet printers for black and white anything. The only thing they are good for is photos, and even then you are paying more per print for a worse photo vs local print or online order options. That holds true even if you get good deals and somehow actually use the entire cartridge set without waste, I did the math a few times over the years. The only use cases are printing shit you're too embarrassed to risk printer shop seeing, or is illegal/copyright, or you just like giving money to these garbage companies.
Maybe projects like this will change the math. I think if they targeted commercial print specifications it would be quite interesting. The jump to larger format printers is so expensive.
I bought a toner printer in 2020 and I'm still on the first replacement cart. I have over 2000 pages printed.
Considering I spent $80, plus $40 on the new two pack of toner, I consider it money well spent.
~~I do wish I had bought a laser printer though... There are things I would like to begin printing that will be several thousand pages after it's all finished. Mostly reference materials.~~ DISREGRD THIS I DUM
Inkjet, liquid ink is the media, sprayed through a nozzle while moving back and forth.
reads manual
You're only confused because I'm dumb! For some reason I was thinking toner and laser were separate types.
Only for colour laser because they're much more complicated internally. My B&W isn't any bigger than an inkjet scanner/copier/printer combo unit.
Exception: Definitely heavier.
Certification mark applications
A certification mark is a type of trademark that is used to show consumers that particular goods and/or services, or their providers, have met certain standards.www.uspto.gov
I'm biased towards all software being open sourced.
Certificate marks look potentially useful if many more people cared about the value of open source (software freedom). People who do care probably already know common licenses, and custom licenses do not inspire any confidence (law ain't easy).
It's difficult to tell when people are internationally misleading others saying "open source" because many devs just say it to mean "you can see the code". Some would sincerely, without ill-intent, call Unreal Engine open source. Would certificate marks promote an understanding?
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While I’d personally love to see an open color lazer printer more. (Less wasteful and more rugged)
I use a black-and-white laser printer, but if I were going to use a color laser printer, I'd like to have an open color laser printer simply because I'd like to have a printer that isn't dumping printer tracking dots into each image I print.
Charlie Kirk’s death has ignited a war over Israel on the right, and the Israel lobby is worried
Charlie Kirk’s death has ignited a war over Israel on the right, and the Israel lobby is worried
The battle over Charlie Kirk’s legacy continues with conservatives’ changing views on Israel at the heart of it. The Israel lobby is shaken, and polls suggest a political “earthquake” may be taking place.Philip Weiss (Mondoweiss)
The Martyrdom of Charlie Kirk
Martyrs are used by messianic movements to sanctify violence. To show any mercy or understanding toward the enemy is to betray the martyr and the cause the martyr died defending.Chris Hedges (The Chris Hedges Report)
I can’t agree with the author. I think this murder will be forgotten by Christmas and it will not change things that much.
So much is happening now it will overwhelm any sensible strategy or rally point by the reactionaries.
I know people who really respect the author, though, and I’ve agreed with him before
Years ago I saw some parallels in history from when the Protestant Catholics wars were fought in Europe. And how only so much social change could be tolerated before reactionary forces snapped back like a rubber band stretched too long.
It gives a partial answer about why systems are run by fascist morons, and the normal checks to their power is eroded.
If history is anything to go by, and normally it rhymes, things will take decades to go from bad to worse.
News Corp and Advance called to Australian misinformation inquiry
News Corp and Advance called to misinformation inquiry
Right-wing activist group Advance has disdain for the Senate inquiry into energy and climate misinformation, but it just can’t help getting involved.Karen Barlow (The Saturday Paper)
Strong-Armed by Trump, Netanyahu Embraces Gaza Deal as a Personal Win
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/37119469
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel took credit for an emerging agreement, but it was clear that President Trump was calling the shots.
Strong-Armed by Trump, Netanyahu Embraces Gaza Deal as a Personal Win
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel took credit for an emerging agreement, but it was clear that President Trump was calling the shots.https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/world/middleeast/trump-netanyahu-gaza-deal.html
Strong-Armed by Trump, Netanyahu Embraces Gaza Deal as a Personal Win
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/37119469
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel took credit for an emerging agreement, but it was clear that President Trump was calling the shots.
Strong-Armed by Trump, Netanyahu Embraces Gaza Deal as a Personal Win
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel took credit for an emerging agreement, but it was clear that President Trump was calling the shots.https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/world/middleeast/trump-netanyahu-gaza-deal.html
Strong-Armed by Trump, Netanyahu Embraces Gaza Deal as a Personal Win
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/37119469
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel took credit for an emerging agreement, but it was clear that President Trump was calling the shots.
Strong-Armed by Trump, Netanyahu Embraces Gaza Deal as a Personal Win
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel took credit for an emerging agreement, but it was clear that President Trump was calling the shots.https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/world/middleeast/trump-netanyahu-gaza-deal.html
Strong-Armed by Trump, Netanyahu Embraces Gaza Deal as a Personal Win
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel took credit for an emerging agreement, but it was clear that President Trump was calling the shots.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/world/middleeast/trump-netanyahu-gaza-deal.html
It's been 1 year since the Baltimore bridge collapse. Where does the Key Bridge rebuild stand?
It's been 1 year since the Baltimore bridge collapse. Where does the Key Bridge rebuild stand?
Baltimore's iconic Francis Scott Key Bridge was hit by a ship and collapsed one year ago. Since then, state and federal leaders have collaborated to fund and reconstruct a brand-new bridge, which is expected to be finished by the fall of 2028.Adam Thompson (CBS Baltimore)
The destruction of Gaza City is a crime against history
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/37118218
from +972’s Sunday Recap
972 Magazine [published in Israel]
Oct 5, 2025Also:
- I vowed never to flee Gaza City. But Israel’s assault has left me no choice
- The Israeli right’s ‘time of miracles’ is over. The Palestinians are going nowhere
The destruction of Gaza City is a crime against history
from +972’s Sunday Recap
972 Magazine [published in Israel]
Oct 5, 2025Also:
- I vowed never to flee Gaza City. But Israel’s assault has left me no choice
- The Israeli right’s ‘time of miracles’ is over. The Palestinians are going nowhere
https://www.972mag.com/wp-content/themes/rgb/newsletter.php?page_id=8§ion_id=187626
The destruction of Gaza City is a crime against history
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/37118218
from +972’s Sunday Recap
972 Magazine [published in Israel]
Oct 5, 2025Also:
- I vowed never to flee Gaza City. But Israel’s assault has left me no choice
- The Israeli right’s ‘time of miracles’ is over. The Palestinians are going nowhere
The destruction of Gaza City is a crime against history
from +972’s Sunday Recap
972 Magazine [published in Israel]
Oct 5, 2025Also:
- I vowed never to flee Gaza City. But Israel’s assault has left me no choice
- The Israeli right’s ‘time of miracles’ is over. The Palestinians are going nowhere
https://www.972mag.com/wp-content/themes/rgb/newsletter.php?page_id=8§ion_id=187626
The destruction of Gaza City is a crime against history
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/37118218
from +972’s Sunday Recap
972 Magazine [published in Israel]
Oct 5, 2025Also:
- I vowed never to flee Gaza City. But Israel’s assault has left me no choice
- The Israeli right’s ‘time of miracles’ is over. The Palestinians are going nowhere
The destruction of Gaza City is a crime against history
from +972’s Sunday Recap
972 Magazine [published in Israel]
Oct 5, 2025Also:
- I vowed never to flee Gaza City. But Israel’s assault has left me no choice
- The Israeli right’s ‘time of miracles’ is over. The Palestinians are going nowhere
https://www.972mag.com/wp-content/themes/rgb/newsletter.php?page_id=8§ion_id=187626
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Balloons carrying smuggled cigarettes over Lithuania close airport for hours
Balloons carrying smuggled cigarettes over Lithuania close airport for hours
Up to 25 small hot-air balloons, some carrying smuggled cigarettes, entered Lithuanian airspace late Saturday, forcing the shutdown of Vilnius AirportLIUDAS DAPKUS Associated Press (ABC News)
The destruction of Gaza City is a crime against history
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/37118218
from +972’s Sunday Recap
972 Magazine [published in Israel]
Oct 5, 2025Also:
- I vowed never to flee Gaza City. But #Israel’s assault has left me no choice
- The Israeli right’s ‘time of miracles’ is over. The Palestinians are going nowhere
The destruction of Gaza City is a crime against history
from +972’s Sunday Recap
972 Magazine [published in Israel]
Oct 5, 2025Also:
- I vowed never to flee Gaza City. But Israel’s assault has left me no choice
- The Israeli right’s ‘time of miracles’ is over. The Palestinians are going nowhere
https://www.972mag.com/wp-content/themes/rgb/newsletter.php?page_id=8§ion_id=187626
The destruction of Gaza City is a crime against history
from +972’s Sunday Recap
972 Magazine [published in Israel]
Oct 5, 2025
Also:
- I vowed never to flee Gaza City. But Israel’s assault has left me no choice
- The Israeli right’s ‘time of miracles’ is over. The Palestinians are going nowhere
https://www.972mag.com/wp-content/themes/rgb/newsletter.php?page_id=8§ion_id=187626
Bezos plan for solar powered datacenters is out of this world… literally
Bezos plan for solar powered datacenters is out of this world… literally
: Aspiring Bond villain believes the best place to train our AI overlords is in orbitTobias Mann (The Register)
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Billionaire seem to have a... unscientific view of a sci fi future. Especially Musk, since he thinks he's so transcendental, but apparently Bezos can't help himself now either.
It doesn't look like Star Trek.
It doesn't look like a Cyberpunk movie.
I'd recommend diving into this for a more scientifically 'thought out' and optimistic extrapolation: orionsarm.com/
Interestingly, this is a neat idea waaay down the line, in the way a Dyson Swarm is interesting. But not anytime in the near future, not until humanity is very, very different (assuming we survive that long).
It doesn't look like a Cyberpunk movie.
The real world looks surprisingly like a cyberpunk movie already.
Billionaire seem to have a… unscientific view of a sci fi future.
That's cause due to network effects people who are making such projects are equivalent to grocers in qualification. Just were in the right place at the right time. They are not engineers, not philosophers. But since they've read and seen in sci-fi that they have to show something engineer-philosopher-like, they are doing all this bullshit.
Our world's problem is in these monopolies which should be busted. After they are busted, we'll see a lot of goodness through the usual normal competition.
And also I don't think the sequence of events that led to the current state of things should be treated as some proof of "capitalism not working" or "computer-driven futurism being a dead end" or even "space travel not ever happening" or anything as radical. Every time is different. It's like living all your life alone after one bad relationship.
We should dream, and we should make, and we should try, and we should tell those who think it's their "vision" or none to go kick rocks.
I'd recommend diving into this for a more scientifically 'thought out' and optimistic extrapolation: orionsarm.com/
Man... if the Technopocolpyse is what you consider optimistic, I'd hate to find out what you consider pessimism!
Humanity survived though. Even with 'humans' dying out, I'd like some form of life to expand and go on.
My biggest fear is Earth 'fizzling' and never expanding before the Sun eats it, and the odds of that happening are pretty high.
Well, I'm not sure you've considered the time-frames involved in that concern. We have a whole lot of time before the sun goes out on us. It took Earth about 2 billion years to develop multicellular life. It then took another 2.5 b before we got vertebrates. That was the hard part though and it's done, I don't think there's any undoing it. There aren't many things that could wipe out all forms of vertebrates on earth, so I'm confident that would be as far back as the planet could reasonably be set back by any disaster.
Just 60 million years ago, mammals were not at all a dominant form of life, yet that's all it took for early rodent-like mammals to evolve into human beings (as well as all the other mammals we know today). So based on that timeline, if all human life on the planet were wiped out tomorrow, I'd estimate (pessimistically) it would take less than another 200 million years before another species gained a similar level of intelligence and began a new era of civilization (and perhaps as little as 10 m years, as some species are already quite intelligent). In fact, if the next species screws up, and gets themselves killed, I expect earth will get another go at it in another 10--200 million years, over and over again.
On the other side of the equation, the sun will expand into a red giant and consume the earth in about 5 billion years. That gives us a whole lot of tries to get it right.
I have, but I’m also concerned that humanity got “lucky” so far and that this won’t happen again. There are theories positing that there are several blocking “gates” to civilization, and humanity passed an exceptional number of them already.
It’s reasonable to assert that’s a misleading, human centric perspective; but I’d also point out that the Fermi Paradox supports it. Either:
- The conditions that gave birth to our civilization are not exceptional, and spread intelligent life is hiding from us (unlikely at this point, I think)
- They are exceptional, and we just happened to have passed many unlikely hurdles so far (hence it is critical we don’t trip up at the end here).
- They are not that exceptional (eg more intelligent vertebrates will rise, and would rise on other planets), but there is some gate we are not aware of yet (which I have heard called the Great Filter).
Another suspicious coincidence I’d point out is that we are, seemingly, the only advanced civilization from Earth so far. If we died out soon, other vertebrates that rise would find evidence of us by this point, wouldn’t they? Hence odds are we wouldnt be the first and we would have found precursors if ‘vertebrates rising and then killing themselves off’ was a likely scenario.
TL;DR: I suspect vertebrates -> our tech level is a difficult jump.
Well that's all true, we don't actually know what the real filters are, are we already past them, or are they still ahead of us? Certainly people have speculated about this for a long time, and I won't pretend to have any more real answers than anyone else. But honestly, I'd have a hard time believing that the really rare event, that the great filter lays somewhere between the development of the brain and the development of the kind of intelligence humans have. It just seems like a relatively small jump (relative to all the other hurdles) between many of the smarter animals on earth and human beings. For example, many species use tools a whole lot actually. Only a few other species actually make tools or alter them to a large degree, but you know, give it 10 million years and see if that changes. Likewise, many species have languages, some species even give themselves names, so they can intentionally address other individuals in their social group.
If you don't mind a bit of total speculation on my part, in my opinion, the explanation to the Fermi paradox is actually pretty simple, there really is no paradox. Intelligent life is probably relatively common in the universe, the reason we don't see aliens all over the place is that intelligent life thrives too well for that. Once a species is capable of traveling other stars, it's just a matter of time before they settle most of their galaxy, like within a million years (which is very quick on evolutionary scales). We're just the first intelligent life in this galaxy, we can assume this because if there were others, they'd already have colonies right here on earth, because it's a great planet.
To double back on the great filter though, my best guess about which events might be truly rare, my money is on Eukaryotic life and mitochondria. That feels like a real freak accident, as well as an absolutely vital requirement for complex life.
Yeah, I buy the filter (or at least a big filter) being early. That does seem like a freak accident, even with all that time for it.
But on the spread of civilization, this is why I love Orion's arm: it posits that if a civilization like ours makes it another few thousand years, it'll expanded in a bubble at a significant fraction of the speed of light and be extremely difficult to extinguish at that point, meaning civilization should have spread across galaxies by now:
orionsarm.com/eg-article/49333…
That makes a lot of sense to me.
And the fiction, even as wild as it is, gives the still somewhat unsolved Fermi Paradox a lot of thought:
orionsarm.com/eg-article/464d0…
I particularly like the 'Ginnungagap Theory' that, perhaps, there's some unknown barrier to expansion.
orionsarm.com/eg-article/464e9…
"Even with all the equipment available in the Civilized Galaxy and beyond the amount of the Universe which can be examined in detail is tiny. Imagine our own Galaxy as a deep sea fish, with very sharp but tiny eyes, peering at the other galaxies with trepidation."
With the caveat that I only read the transcripts, I don't find that compelling at all.
The initial sentiment is correct; folks like Sam Altman responding to existential problems like “oh we can just build a Dyson Sphere in 30 years” should be in freaking jail instead of power.
But the only other justification I see is “well, this is stupidly impractical in the context of current humans.” Things like:
- “What, we make all those nanobots and get all that energy with fusion and use it to disassemble Jupiter?”
- “Why don’t we just use that energy to leave the solar system?”
- “Say it’s a Dyson Swarm; what do we do living on all those solar satellites?”
She’s fallen into the same trap of “existing sci fi” she accuses other of falling into.
We’re not talking about a bunch of people in space looking to expand a habit. At this point, we’re talking about some AI that’s already converted an entire moons worth of mass into computronium, can upload folks to VR and simulate realities, that can reconfigure atomic nuclei into ultradense strings of matter or construct and control tiny black holes to generate energy and elements.
It’s left the solar system loooong ago.
Its capabilities, needs, and goals are completely umhuman, and at that point pondering how to efficiently capture the output of all this stellar mass sustainably is absolutely practical to plan. A Dyson Sphere (or more practically a swarm) isn’t the only way, but it’s not the worst idea for a “young” intelligence. And in OA, at a certain point, the Sephrotics seem to construct “sci fi” dyson spheres as habitats for aesthetic reasons, whereas their actual industrial/computational bases are more utilitarian arrangements of masses.
No, I just skimmed the transcript because it’s an hour long, heh.
I did get that bit about SETI and the original paper, which is interesting, and also agree that astronomers looking for them over the paper is hilarious and stupid.
We've had the template for this for decades. Put the solar panels in space where the thick soupy gunky spunky atmosphere doesn't stop the little energy things from the sun. Collect the power in orbit. You just do that up there up in orbit okay? And then you fucking beam the power down to the surface you numpty fucks. Use a maser to send the power down to the surface and you can pick a frequency that isn't affected by the gunky spunky and then the receivers on the ground can pick it up and they send the power through these things called wires to a building that uses the power and the building can use this neat little thing called CONVECTION to more efficiently remove the heat from the things using the electricity wow.
Or just, y'know, use less power and make use of ground based solar. We don't need fucking AI data centers in space. Don't get me wrong, I think it might be useful to, say, have some compute up in geostationary orbit that other satellites could punt some data to for computation. You could have an evenly spaced ring of the fuckers so the users up there can get some data crunching done with a RTT of like 50ms instead of 700ms. That seems like a hard sell, but it at least seems a bit tenable if you needed to reduce the data you're sending back to the earth down to a more manageable amount with some preprocessing. That is still not fuckass gigawatt AI data centers. Fuck
That's a more interesting idea but still quite questionable, given how expensive sending anything to space is, and then maintaining it.
It made more sense with solar was expensive per square mm, but that is no longer the case.
Also, transmission is a huge problem. It's easy to say 'make a maser,' but making giant one and aiming it reliably (lest one fries nearby terrain as the satellite moves to track the sun), and making a receiver big enough from how much the laser spreads out from geosync orbit is a tall order. Geosync is super far away.
There's plenty of space on the ground, for now.
That sounds like privacy, not evil.
Because history, as well as current events, tell us that governments will absolutely make privacy illegal, so if you can do an end run of them by not being beholden to ANY government, then that is absolutely a good thing.
That sounds like privacy
Oh boy you are naive if you think that's the result of no regulation.
The real result will be monetization, using and selling the info to everyone who wants to buy including governments.
If you care about your data, keep it on servers in EU or Switzerland, it may not be perfect, but the protection is more crucial than the risks under their protective laws.
USA is a cesspool, and the worst of both. The only difference from space being that the government can take the info without paying.
Naive? No. What's naive is thinking that if you give power to anyone over your own data , even your government, that it will.protect it.
You think the EU cares about your privacy? I know my own government is doing it's level best to destroy mine, but at least I'm aware of it.
You, however, have the naivete of Pollyanna and think your vaunted EU is better.
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Analysis: Record solar growth keeps China’s CO2 falling in first half of 2025 - Carbon Brief
Clean-energy growth helped China’s CO2 emissions fall by 1% in first half of 2025, extending a declining trend that started in March 2024.Lauri Myllyvirta (Carbon Brief)
They are currently laying the foundation for the future where they can shift the balance from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Take a look at the amount of renewable energy they're producing. Not only is that growing fast, it's already a large quantity.
Some industries, like steel, will take longer to switch, so getting rid of fossil fuels entirely will probably take a very long time. Total energy consumption is also likely to increase in the future, so the existing emitters will likely continue to be in operation for decades. However, as the energy demand increases, more and more of that energy will be produced by renewable means. This means that, due to renewable energy production, the total emissions won't grow as fast as they otherwise would.
DeepSeek AI Models Are Unsafe and Unreliable, Finds NIST-Backed Study
The article says that DeepSeek was easier to unalign to obey the users instruction. It has less refusals and they make that sound like a bad thing.
If anything, it's a glowing positive praise for the model. Looks like Western media is starting a campaign to gaslight people into thinking that users being able to tune the model to work the way they want is somehow a negative.
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/news-deepseek-security-gaps-caisi-study/
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Technology reshared this.
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The article says that DeepSeek was easier to unalign to obey the users instruction. It has less refusals and they make that sound like a bad thing.
From a state control perspective it is. It's unreliable for state purposes. The AI is less able to stick to a programmed narrative.
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How two blonde suburban moms gave Democrats an answer to the rightwing media ecosystem
When Donald Trump scheduled a press conference after a weekend in which rumors about his health swirled, two women in red-state Oklahoma launched a livestream for their more than 1 million followers on YouTube to speculate about the condition of “Cankles McTacoTits”, shortened to Canks “for expediency and spite”.
It was fitting for the profanity-laced, straight talking liberal podcast ‘I’ve Had It’ that quipped, after interviewing Barack Obama, that the former president has “big dick energy”.
How two blonde suburban moms gave Democrats an answer to the rightwing media ecosystem
Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan’s podcast I’ve Had It has risen up the charts and created a community with ‘a brand of fuck-you politics’Rachel Leingang (The Guardian)
While Washington fixates on advanced AI semiconductors, Beijing is quietly cornering the market in so-called foundational chips that power everything from cars to medical devices to defence systems.
This is why the "military threat" argument was always a lie. I knew the military preferred legacy nodes with proven reliability and yields.
The cutting edge was always for high end smartphones, GPUs and the like; and not military uses.
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The ‘shadow fleet’ tanker raid was pure theatre
The ‘shadow fleet’ tanker raid was pure theatre
The news footage was satisfyingly reminiscent of Mission: Impossible. Masked French commandoes swarmed up the side of the rusty oil tanker Boracay, assault rifles drawn, and commenced their search for evidence the vessel had been responsible for laun…Owen Matthews (The Spectator)
Israel accused of detaining Greta Thunberg in infested cell and making her hold flags
Greta Thunberg says she is being detained by Israel in cell infested with bedbugs
Activist tells Swedish officials she has been subjected to harsh treatment, including insufficient food and waterLorenzo Tondo (The Guardian)
Russia rains drones and missiles on Ukraine, Poland scrambles aircraft
Russia rains drones and missiles on Ukraine, Poland scrambles aircraft
LVIV: NATO member Poland said it scrambled aircraft early on Sunday (Oct 5) to ensure its air safety after Russia launched airstrikes on Ukraine, with Ukrainian officials reporting missiles and drones raining down on the Lviv region near the Polish b…CNA (Channel NewsAsia)
RFK Jr. fires NIH vaccine whistleblower Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has fired a top official with the National Institutes of Health who blew the whistle on internal clashes over vaccine research in the early months of the Trump administration.
On Wednesday, Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo received a letter from Kennedy — which CBS News reviewed — informing her that her role leading NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, had been terminated. He did not cite a cause beyond his constitutional authority to do so. Last month, in an exclusive interview with CBS News, Marrazzo said she had been silenced when she and her colleagues pushed back against NIH officials appointed by Trump who questioned the importance of childhood flu vaccines and canceled long-running clinical trials.
RFK Jr. fires NIH vaccine whistleblower Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo
RFK Jr. fired infectious disease specialist Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, who told CBS News she was put on leave after questioning actions taken by Trump appointees.Michael Kaplan (CBS News)
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China’s top diplomat Wang Yi to visit Italy, Switzerland this week
China’s top diplomat Wang Yi to visit Italy and Switzerland this week
Foreign minister’s second trip to Europe in two months comes as Beijing and Rome seek closer cooperation after Sinochem case dismissed.William Zheng (South China Morning Post)
"Anti-ai arguments literally support eugenics"
Reminds me of this:
I think atproto is a good protocol, but god bluesky-the-company is dogshit.
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There's any way to flag and filter AI contents?
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Why?
Why did you switch to Linux? I'd like to hear your story.
Btw I switched (from win11 to arch) because I got bored and wanted a challenge. Thx :3
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Primarily, they're both gaming-focused.
I found out about Pop!_OS when doing research for gaming on Linux. It's maintained by a private company, and they invest a lot of time into keeping their drivers up-to-date. AFAIK it's still one of the best choices if you have Nvidia cards, because they have a separate ISO just for Nvidia machines.
For a short time, I used Kubuntu because I love KDE Plasma. I had been wanting to use Plasma again, and I kinda wanted to try a non-Debian/Ubuntu-based distro. That's when I stumbled upon CachyOS, and I don't think I'm switching to another distro for a while.
CachyOS is Arch-based, with a super-easy install. They have their own version of the kernel, optimized for gaming. It really is fast, too. Not only does it beat Windows in most speed tests, but it beats pretty much every other distro as well. If you like Arch, I highly recommend CachyOS to keep some of the basic stuff optimized while you tinker with your system.
Thanks for the comprehensive reply. Agree on KDE being great. Idk if it is because it has more of a windows feel, or because it isn't as flashy as GNOME.
If my current Bazzite instance doesn't work out, maybe I'll try Cachy.
I've heard great things about Bazzite, so I'm sure you'll be fine there.
I just wanted something new, and Fedora was too similar to Ubuntu under the hood. I don't know if I'm going to look back from Arch-based. Maybe when I break my install lol.
My first experience with Linux was as a kid, when the family PC that was handed down to us breathed its last. Quite a bit of malware was on that machine, and it got left to sit in the garage.
I found Ubuntu and revived the Compaq, although the experience was limited, and me as a 10 year old didn't really know what all could be done with a PC anyway.
Since then, it's been a slow burn. 2022 had me dual booting Linux and Windows, and learning how to migrate everything over.
2025 and Windows 11 recall, AI everywhere, intrusive Big Tech had me pull the trigger and nuke the Windows boot from my machine.
Now I'm here. Enjoying a peaceful time on my hardware just like it used to be when I was a kid. The internet and the computer have the capacity to be wonderful again.
Well yes, but actually no.
On a more serious note, most things are available, some things are behind on updates unless you compile everything yourself (even when using the ports collection).
I haven't used it as a desktop environment, I was just maintaining a FreeBSD server, so no idea on that end
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I have been tinkering with Linux before, but some software needed Windows.
I tried switching those apps.
* Corel to InkScape went well, I instantly liked it better.
* MS Office to LibreOffice: I just don't need Excel that much, so it's OK.
* Corel laser engraving to K40Whisperer: a breath of fresh air, simple and efficient.
Then, free from all those chains I installed EndeavourOS, and it's been great.
I’ve used it since the 90s, but windows was always my daily driver. Linux always worked, but games could be spotty and there always seemed to be to be the random breakage for no reason.
But that changed a few years ago. Games “just worked”, device support became really good, and if I’m being honest - I became a gnome guy. That interface is very very productive, especially on a laptop with a trackpad.
And then windows just, started sucking. They break machines with every single update, it’s like there’s zero qa anymore. And the little things became more and more annoying - the pop ups “upgrade to 11, try copilot, OneDrive isn’t working omfg let me help you fix that” the “where is that setting moved to now” game, the extra clicks everywhere.
My dual boot setup found a windows drive that was never being used anymore. I didn’t switch, I just stopped using. Eventually I just deleted the partition and use it for extra space and playing around with other OSs.
During this process I distro hopped quite a bit and eventually settled on fedora workstation. It’s been good to me on three PCs.
on my main laptop for whatever reason Windows 11, about twice a year or so, would insist on killing my wifi. Just out right disable it and not even uninstalling and reinstalling drivers would work. It would simply just kill it and pretend it never existed. the ONLY fix was to completely reinstall the OS. so almost like clockwork twice a year I'd have to reinstall the OS. It was also absolutely destroying the battery on my laptop. I would get MAYBE 30min out of it.
So after reading some threads I decided to give Linux a go. I went nuclear winter on it and didn't even bother dual booting, just wiped the computer completely and started with Mint. Stayed on that for a couple weeks until I completely messed up the install by trying to modify cinnemon a bit too much so then I switched to CachyOS and fell in love with it.
Since then I distro hopped a few times and I'm currently using NixOS. As far as the battery issue? I get about 4 hours out of it now instead of 30min.
My old desktop couldnt update to 11. But for my newer computer, Windows recall was a deciding factor. Fuck that shit. Also fuck their "ai" nonsense.
It's nice that it's free and doing little to nothing contrary to my interests.
About 20 years ago, I wanted to add recording studio capabilities to my gaming PC but I was a broke high schooler, so I installed Ubuntu Studio as a dual boot option alongside Windows XP.
Anyway, I installed Arch on my laptop about 3 years later in college using the Arch Book, which was essentially the same as the wiki's install guide at the time.
I had a dual boot system with Windows and Mac (it was a hackintosh) as my home recording studio Pro Tools/gaming PC for about a decade, then my Windows install had to be wiped due to an issue I had, so I decided to just wipe the whole thing and go single boot with Linux Mint, so now I use Reaper for recording and Steam + Heroic + emulators are meeting all my gaming needs. I use the Xanmod kernel and the kisak-mesa PPA, and since making the switch I've upgraded essentially all of the parts in my PC, which is good because I first built it in 2013
Probably the same reason many people use it:
Heard about it from someone/online --> tried it in a VM --> Tried it on real hardware --> Liked it enough to keep it/ditch windows partition if they dual-booted.
In my case, I started with Mint in 2023 and eventually distro-hopped to ArcoLinux (RIP) then Arch (BTW). Trying out Endeavour now as my Arch-Arco install is a mess and I'd like something similar to Arco.
Oh as for the reason why: Sick of Microsoft's shit and didn't want to downgrade from Windows 10 to 11.
Microsoft released Windows Vista, which was absolute dogshit on every PC at the time it was released.
This also just happened to be not long after Ubuntu was released, making it easier than ever to install Linux.
Installed it, quickly found out everything was easier to configure and tinker with in Linux...
Never saw a reason to go back. Used Windows 7 for a little bit, and it was better than Vista, but it still wasn't anywhere near as easy to use as Linux
I switched because Linux is obviously way better in so many ways. No brainer.
I use Windows at work and it's a joke. It's security theater. Microsoft and similar capitalist entities are paid not for actual security but for liability protection.
About 2 years ago I started the process of moving away from big tech, slowly, starting with transitioning from gmail to Protonmail. Ramped up on Jan 20 after seeing big tech CEOs at Trump's inauguration. Windows was the last thing I switched. I had kicked it down the list because I freelance with an audio focus, and Linux is sorely less equipped for audio than Windows or Mac. Said screw it about 2 months ago and made the switch, and I'm now completely free from walled gardens and big tech.
It hasn't been an easy switch, but I've made it work, and in fact have improved my audio quality with Linux. There certainly are limitations, and some things take more effort, but I've come to realize a bit of extra work in exchange for freedom is far superior than convenience in a walled garden covered in surveillance.
I installed and ran gentoo in 2005 on a home server that hosted a file sharing repository and php forum for my friends.
In college I ran Ubuntu on my netbook for programming and internet browsing on.
Then in 2021 Windows 11 came out and refused to install on my 2017 laptop. So I threw my hands up and installed EndeavorOS in a dual boot configuration. After a few months, EndeavorOS broke my boot with an update. Threw up my hands again and installed Fedora and haven't had an issue in years.
Well, "why" is just curiosity and wanting to explore new things. I had been learning some programming on Windows, but had heard rumblings about linux. I explored Red Hat, wasn't wowed. It was fine, but not enough to lure me away.
That was 26 yrs ago.
14 yrs ago, I created a dual boot on my laptop, with Ubuntu/Gnome. After about 2 yrs, I made Ubuntu my daily. A windows auto update tried to wipe linux off my drive, so I put Windows in jail, shrunk the partition as small as I could, and removed it from the boot sequence.
I don't distro hop, I used Ubuntu until earlier this year. It was always good enough, never awesome, but i learned things and felt a whole lote more secure than on windows.
About 6 months ago, I switched to Fedora/KDE. I'm sure I could find lots of benefits to other distros, but I never felt much need to shop around.
BTW, I absolutely love Fedora /KDE in a way I never felt about Ubuntu. Maybe it's just KDE vs Gnome. It just feels so much more comfortable.
I've always gave Linux a try for a week or so over many years but then crawled back to Windows. First time I've actually found it somewhat viable and I stuck to it for over a month was with Proton release but at that point there were still too many pain points while using it.
Then when Windows started pushing Recall I went to Fedora 38 and it lasted me for almost 6 months before I went back to W11 due to many issues related to just basic use on desktop due to buggy nature of KDE 5 with which I've lost patience.
Starting with Fedora 40 and with GNOME starting supporting VRR I've been on Linux since and had no real desire to go back since. So it seems that for my use case Linux finally got to the point where Windows is not a necessary thing for me, in fact I dread going back whenever I think about it as now there are things I would miss by switching back to Windows.
Also I use Windows 11 at my job and I really hate it, multi-tasking is so much better even with just single monitor on Linux vs Dual monitor on Windows... Also I just really like GNOME, even before I've even tried GNOME I've customized my KDE to be GNOME like before even realizing it. And yes, I've tried KDE 6 but it's not for me. I plan to try Hyprland though as that seems more interesting but I dread moving on from Fedora as it works well for me so I don't really have any need to disto hop.
Similar story to a lot of others here
Around a year ago I got fed up with Microsoft forcefully pushing unwanted and privacy-invading "features" on their users. It scared me to continue using it. I wanted more control and more protection for my privacy. So I decided to install Mint.
I've dabbled with Linux in the past and use it extensively in my job, but hadn't switched significantly to it in the past. One of the biggest blockers being games. I bought a Steam Deck a couple of years ago so I was needing increasingly confident that Linux would work for gaming to some extent. It ended up working very smoothly and I haven't looked back.
I still have my dual boot, partially because I haven't bothered to remove windows fully. At this point there's very little reason for me to not into windows. I've only encountered one game I've wanted to play that didn't work in Linux and that was an old game with mods. I might be able to get it working if I really troubleshooted it, but it's not that important.
Originally? To play with image AI models when they first came out.
Then I got that taste of freedom and Windows felt icky. Haven’t touched that side of my dual boot for non-work purposes in years. Even for work it’s a last resort.
Grew up on it. My dad set up a Ubuntu 4.10 PC for my brother and I when we were 3/5 (no internet, obv), and it stuck.
Used Windows for a brief time in highschool to be able to play online with friends.
Went right back to Linux when going to university. Will never change back, both for ideological reasons and because Linux is just better.
Next step: NixOS on a phone
My desktop PC ran Windows 10 and didn’t have the magic Windows 11 chip. I tried to do some easy things to get it to recognise my PC as having that chip anyway, but it didn’t work, and I was a bit afraid it’d run like shit with 11 anyway.
So I just decided to try something different and install Linux. First on an old little laptop I had lying around. I tried Mint first, then OpenSUSE - the first because it was supposed to be easy to newcomers, the latter because it’s German (and I liked the way it felt when I tried it on my laptop).
After trying it for a bit, I just decided I’d install it on my desktop as I didn’t want to use Windows 10 without security updates anyway. I’ve now been using OpenSUSE Leap for about half a year, and I’m quite happy.
Computers were either Windows or Mac, they couldn't be anything else, that was a fact. Then I saw someone using Linux and had so many questions. How? I was given a Knoppix live CD, went home, and booted my home PC into Knoppix and it changed my perception of computers.
I didn't change over immediately but eventually Ubuntu was handing out install CDs and YouTube was full of wobbly windows and desktop cubes. It wasn't useful but it looked cool.
I still needed Windows for gaming, but for day to day it was so much easier to use Linux.
Eventually my gaming was exclusively on the Switch and then was I was looking to play certain PC games the Steam Deck was available, so I bought that.
I think Windows 8 was the last one I used and I've never had any desire to go back. Linux is just easier.
Because
- it works (pretty fundamental!),
- popular alternatives are pretty much evil.
So, I know you think the 2nd point is a hyperbole. That truly I'm exaggerating. Well, actually no, I'm not. I genuinely believe that closed source OSes are one of the biggest epistemological trauma Mankind ever experienced. It's right behind fake as an organized political tool. Sure troll farms and political advertising take the cake... but honestly a locked down OS is very very close. Why? Well because it forces people who use a computer to assume the computer is a black box. It's a thing they can use a certain way. That certain way might be good, lucky them, or bad but regardless they must find a way to make their entire life, professional and private, fit within that very small black box. They are trained, day after day, interaction after interaction, as a lifetime of servitude. The personal computer was supposed to be a "bicycle for the mind" but truly, between closed source OS and the "cloud" (someone else computer, for profit) Mankind has been trained to accept and use a computer as they have been told.
This is an absolute disgrace and should never be accepted. This was bad in the 70s... but nowadays everything around you is a computer. Your computer is a computer (duh) but your phone is a computer, your console is a computer, your headphones are tiny computers, your e-bike is a computer, your doorbell is a computer, your printer is a computer, your washing machine is a computer, heck a light bulb or a button on your wall might be computers!
So... when your entire life is surrounded by small black boxes you are taught never to challenge, your life is miserable.
That's why I switched to Linux.
Why did you switch to Linux? I'd like to hear your story.
I had to do a job (translations) using MS Word 6.0, on a Win 3.11 PC . It was nearly a month of work and I and my gf urgently needed the money. But MS Word kept crashing and nearly obliterated all our work the day before our deadline. It was the most stressful day of my life.
After that, I installed LaTeX for DOS on that 386 PC, and wrote my university lab reports and later my bachelor thesis on it. It was running like a charm. We printed our own christmas cards using LaTeX's beautiful old German Schwabacher font.
At uni, at that time I was working with a software called Matlab on Windows 95, and Windows always crashed after a day or two - it later became known there was an integer overflow bug in the driver for an Ethernet card. Well shit, my computations needed to run more than three days. So, I switched to a SUNOS Unix workstation which ran much better and had lots of high quality software, including a powerful text editor program called "Emacs“. I could not buy such a SUN computer for myself because its price was, in todays money, over 50,000 EUR and we did often not know how to pay 350 EUR of monthly rent.
The other day, a friendly colleague which was already doing his PhD showed me his PC, a cheap newish Pentium machine. He had installed a system on it called Linux, which I had never heard of. I logged on and started Emacs on it and I thought it must be broken: Emacs was running within less than half a second whereas on the SUN OS workstation, it would have taken five or ten seconds to start. All the computers software was free. I realized that this computer had a value of over 50,000 EUR of software for a hardware price of 800 EUR. I got an own Linux PC as soon as possible.
Yes that was in 1998. I am now almost exclusively using Linux since 27 years.
The exact shortcomings of proprietary software have changed since, and keep changing. But what is always the same is: Proprietary software does not work on behalf of you, the user and owner of the computer. Who writes the instructions for the computers CPU, controls it, and will use this power to favour their own interests, not yours. Only if you control the software, and use software written by other users, your computer will ultimately work in favour of you.
ElementaryOS was my gateway drug cuz it was so pretty, I switched to have an OS that made me happy instead of miserable. Dual booted for a while for gaming until I got an hdr monitor and ended up stuck on my (modded for privacy and performance) windows partition more and more, but followed Wayland’s development religiously until plasma finally launched HDR in beta.
I chose arch (btw) cuz I was tired of running Debian-based distros with custom kernels and I generally just don’t like apt, and I don’t see myself ever really wanting to switch again.
(Other than compulsively reinstalling arch to try whatever new shit catches my eye, that doesn’t count)
I'd just built my first PC and had no love for Win 3.1 which was rapidly becoming the default. I wanted to keep codíng having come from from Atari STs and had no desire to learn the windows APIs. An OS that came with C compilers by default was higher level than I was used to as I'd been doing 68000 assembler on the ST, but it was still low level enough.
IIt was also similar enough to the Sun IPCs and IPXs that I was using at university.
I switched because Windows increasingly feels like it is not mine to use control and configure as I see fit. Functions and "features" are intrusive things that Microsoft wants, not me. They make it harder and harder to strip their bullshit out. Apparently I'm not the customer anymore but they still want me to pay for it.
Linux only ever does exactly what I want with total control, for free. It's damn near perfect.
Starting of with some history… I have run Microsoft operating systems since MS-DOS 3.22 and Windows 2.11 (not a typo). I was one of the first in our high school to install Windows 3.0 on one of the school lab machines off of floppy disks when it launched. I have been an early adopter on almost all the Windows OS’s and had a powerful enough PC at the time not to be too bothered about Vista even. I work with Microsoft based development (Windows Server and nowadays Azure) so Windows has always been what worked in my career. That hasn’t changed.
That being said, my computing history started off on a Apple IIc, followed by the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amiga later on. I installed Linux the first time on my 486sx with 4MB of RAM using Slackware with a pre 1.0 kernel. Linux never stuck then as I couldn’t run the applications i needed and games I wanted. I came back to Linux every 5 or so years but it never stuck for the same reasons.
This changes about 5 or so years ago. A chain of things happened over time and it started at home.
- I installed Ubuntu 20.04 on an old laptop and it seemed to have what I needed on it. Mainly browsing and so on - no high demands. The web had moved away from client side plugins and the web just worked.
- Windows 10 nagging to install Windows 11 on my HTPC, when the hardware was too old. Ubuntu 20.04 replaced that install, and the software just worked (browser + Kodi)
- Broadcom purchasing VMWare meant moving away from ESXi in my HomeLab - Proxmox turned out to be mature for what I wanted. I now have a 3 node Proxmox cluster.
- A hard drive crash in one of my Synology NAS boxes led me down a rabbit hole resulting in adopting TrueNAS Scale and ZFS.
- Windows 11 was getting on my nerves for the last couple of years at work. Last year I did the research and took the leap to install Ubuntu 24.04 on my new work laptop. A lot of tools I use are open source - they have reached a decent level of maturity. Microsoft tech such as Dotnet, VSCode, PowerShell and Azure CLI just work for what I need. LibreOffice does a good enough job replacing MS Office. A VM with Visual Studio and MS Office fills the gap - I boot the VM a couple of times a week as needed.
- I installed Ubuntu 24.04 on a secondary desktop last year at home to see if it would fill my needs at home amid the launch of Recall. This resulted in me wiping my main gaming rig a couple of months ago, installing Ubuntu 25.04 as main and a smaller partition with Windows to mainly support flight sims (MSFS and X-Plane - an area where software and hardware support is still lacking on Linux).
- The old laptop that started off with Ubuntu back in 2020 is now distro hopping - Fedora, Debian, OpenSUSE and currently running EndeavourOS. They are fun playing around with and familiarizing myself with but haven’t quite been work adopting fully so far.
The end result today is that I have one VM in Proxmox running Windows Server and a dual boot on my gaming rig running Windows 11 LTSC. Everything else is either Linux or FreeBSD.
It took a couple of months to get completely comfortable with the changes in workflow of daily driving Linux as my main OS, but it settled and it feel almost nostalgic to boot into Windows now.
After using win 11 for about a year I got tired of that shit. Every version since 98made the settings menu harder and harder to find whatever I was looking for and this is true for everything in that OS. Save a file? 5 clicks at least just to be able to pick WHERE I want it. Wtf.
It was driving me insane. Bazzite, easiest OS for what I use my computer for and not looking back.
I was a Windows user as a kid in the 80s & 90s doing pirate installs of 3.11 and later 95 for friends and family. I got into "computers" early and was pretty dedicated to the "Windows is the best!" camp from a young age. I had a friend who was a dedicated Mac user though, and she was bringing me around. The idea of a more-stable, virus-free desktop experience was pretty compelling.
That all changed when I went to school and had access to a proper "Mac lab" though. Those motherfuckers crashed multiple times an hour, and took the whole OS with them when they did it. What really got to me though was the little "DAAAAAAAAAAA!" noise it would make when you had to hard reboot it. It was as if it was celebrating its inadequacy and expected you to participate... every time it fucked you over and erased your work.
So yeah, Macs were out.
I hadn't even heard of Linux in 2000 when I first discovered the GPL, which (for some reason) I conflated with GNOME. I guess I thought that GNOME was a new OS based on what I could only describe as communist licensing. I loved the idea, but was intimidated by the "ix" in the name. "Ix" meant "Unix" to me, and Unix was using Pine to check email, so not a real computer as far as I was concerned.
It wasn't until 2000 that I joined a video game company called "Moshpit Entertainment" that I tried it. You see, the CEO, CTO, and majority of tech people at Moshpit were huge Linux nerds and they indoctrinated me into their cult. I started with SuSe (their favourite), then RedHat, then used Gentoo for 10 years before switching to Arch for another 10+.
TL;DR: Anticapitalism and FOSS cultists lead me into the light.
Windows 95/98 sucked shit. I liked the games, but the kernels were terrible.
I dual booted or ran two machines Linux (RedHat 5.2 to 6.2, wtf was up with 7?), then whatever worked (usually Debian based) for a while. Mostly used Linux alone for years, but used Win7 for a bit. That one was okay, but Microsoft can't build dev tools on their own OS to save their lives.
It's been Linux Mint for a long time now on desktops and Debian/Armbian on servers.
Basically, I've been mainlining Linux since about '97 and it's doing me just fine. Works great for my kids and wife. We're a mostly Linux household. It saves me a ton of headaches. Easy to install, patch, and almost no other maintenance.
Same here, I heard about the reliability of Unix while enduring Windows 95's appalling crashes.
Last month I finally moved my wife's Windows 10 laptop to Endeavor OS. She recognizes that her unusable laptop is now snappy and stable.
My house is now officially Microsoft-free.
For me, Microsoft's original sin was removing the Start menu and the Classic and Aero themes in Windows 8. I wanted something better than questionable UxTheme patches that broke with every major update, and it was during that search that I learned there is more to the world than macOS and Windows.
But it was the invasive telemetry and bloatware that finally made me take action. I'm sure the spike in blood pressure and heart rate whenever I had to undo the asinine default settings on every new install and major update was not good for my health. All of the debloat utilities felt like I was just putting lipstick on a pig.
The ability to customize the interface to my heart's content also got me to learn about and appreciate the inner workings of Linux. I now have a couple setups on Chicago95 XFCE and a couple on AeroThemePlasma KDE. Despite how much I like the familiar UI of Windows, I wouldn't ever look back to using Windows itself.
I switched to Linux because of Linux gaming. Yes, I am completely serious!
Back in 2015 I had Lenovo laptop with only 2GB of RAM. Windows 7 consumed more than half of that and DotA 2 took over 2 minutes to load the map. The game was laggy. FPS was terrible even on low settings.
On another hand Ubuntu 14.04 consumed only ~350 MB of RAM. DotA on Linux loaded map in seconds. FPS was slightly better, but the game itself didn't feel so laggy anymore.
Linux was (and still is) my only viable solution for gaming on low spec hardware.
Why would you assume I switched?
-edit-
It appears my comment wasn’t clear… I never used anything else than Linux on my working systems…
Because you should.
It's free, it works everywhere windows does and has a tool for all your needs.
Purely to record / watch TV, films, etc.
I tried Windows Media Center (XP with some tweaks) and it was dire...
Found MythTV and decided I needed to "learn Linux" to get it done.
Now everything (except my work's laptop) is Linux (Arch btw)
Commodore's bankruptcy in 1994 was the end of the Amiga, which forced me to switch to something else.
At the time, the choice of hardware I could afford and operating systems that didn't suck was extremely limited, a PC with Linux was pretty much the only practical choice and I've stuck with that ever since.
Because Linux had a choice of desktop environments to try out. What a playground.
My first peek was with Wubi. >2008 ish? Then Knoppix had a live boot. Then all the other live boots followed. Very important easy first step.
I'm now on Plasma, tweaked to suit me.
Now I can never use anything but Linux.
I switched January this year.
- Windows 10 end of life was on the horizon
- Programing on windows was a lot of hoops to jump through and i had heard Linux would be better
- Didn't want windows 11/copilot.
Tried dual booting Ubuntu and XP back around 2006, didn't really see the point because gaming on Windows.
2020 got a Raspberry Pi and set up Retropie which gave me a good intro to Linux. Tried to get away from big tech in 2021 and was dual booting Mint and Windows 10. Ended up spending more time in 10 because gaming.
Got an old laptop from work and it was perfect to throw Mint on because no way it was going to handle gaming. Then I set up a media server, initially with the the Pi and then bought a cheap mini for it - and ran it on Mint. I'm primarily a console gamer now so gaming is far less of a concern for me on PC. Mint everything now.
I could distro hop or at least try something else, and maybe I will at some stage. But I'm too happy with Mint/Cinnamon to bother.
Back when I was a freshman in college, I had a regular laptop (Sony Vaio) and at the time netbooks were popular and my girlfriend (now wife) had got me one for Christmas.
Win 7 starter was garbage, XP was fine, but not ideal. I ended up trying out Ubuntu netbook remix since it was supposed to be lighter on resources. At the time I was a pre med student and wanted something for knocking out documents, and reading papers with enough battery to get me until I had to go to work. The iPad wasn’t out yet so that wasn’t an option.
I had a ton of fun getting it working, even the Broadcom chip was a fun challenge. Once it was working, I just really liked the look and feel. I preferred the Unix file structure to windows as well as the terminal experience, using bash vs powershell.
I ended up writing a few programs and apps for myself specifically for that netbook, and it quickly became my primary way of interacting with a computer. I eventually ported my Sony over which had the challenge of writing a couple drivers to get some things working with minimal compatibility.
Following this, I switched from pre med to software engineering and eventually graduated with a degree and I have now been working with software and using Linux ever since. Even now, I am the sole Linux system administrator in the company I work for and manage a handful of servers and deployments.
My first contact with Linux was via amateur radio. I didn't want to hook my radio up to my main PC in case I wired something wrong, so I got one of those newfangled Raspberry Pis, circa 2013. Raspbian Wheezy was my first distro.
Not long after, my old laptop died and I needed a new one. Bought a Dell, it came with WIndows 8.1. Holy shit what an unusable pile. I hated that OS a lot. And then the laptop outright died. I was going back to school, I needed a PC to do school work on, and I've had flesh wounds I was satisfied with more than Dell's warranty support. It took them pretty much an entire semester of "We'll fix it in three weeks or so, when the one guy who does field repairs in your state will look at it", "it's fixed" it breaks almost instantly, before I finally demanded they replace the entire machine. Which they did, with a different, lesser, model. I am no longer a customer of Dell.
This left me doing all of my school work on a Raspberry Pi 1B, and then a Pi 2, for about 3 months. So I got a bit of a crash course in managing a Linux system.
Once I finally got a working laptop, Windows 8.1 felt more alien to me than Linux Mint did. It would actually have been more work to learn Windows 8.1 than Mint Cinnamon. So I became a full time Linux user.
- fun, I like trying out new software
- I love the philosophy of free software.
- fuck Microsoft and windows.
- It's actually just better
(I switched last year)
I started dabbling in around 2000, getting sick of the instability of Windows, and it seeming like the next logical step of geekdom.
I tried a LOT of distros. Mandrake, Connectiva, Red Hat to Fedora Core, Slackware, Debian Woody, Crux, etc etc. I drifted in a Debian-centric circle until I finally landed on Arch. Lost my way for a bit during my IT career, supporting Windows I ended up just using that. But I'm back to Arch now as my daily, Debian for some networking projects, and a bit of Fedora from time to time when I need to spin something up quick.
- I'm a lifelong contrarian.
- I refuse to overpay into the locked-down Apple ecosystem.
- Windows has become worse with every release.
- I use Arch btw.
"Home"
Kerala Actually. I use ubuntu in schools and universities
I heard two talks around 2001 or so. one by Wolfram, after which I swore never to use mathematica again. and one by stallman after which I switched completely to Linux and never went back to windows.
still on Linux 25y later. went from days when getting sound working was a challenge , to today when even obscure tablets work out of the box.
started with red hat. used Gentoo for about 5y. then debian for 10, and now arch.
went from the old "crux" and metacity, to openbox to fvwm to gnome to kde plasma
i remember the old days I was envious of Mac users for transparency and the present windows features, and I ran this utility called Skippy that would screenshot windows and present them... all these features are now built in to the wm now, so no tweaking needed
Same as most people. OSs have just evolved to become systems made to serve their creators rather than their "customers".
Windows wants to steal all your data and then use it to shove ads in your face.
Apple also constantly tries to push their own products and services through the OS, not to mention continually pushing the boundaries of irrepairability and locking you in an ecosystem. And just being extremely expensive.
During early high school years I heard about this thing called linux and there's something that's ubuntu, and said, why not? downloaded the ISO, installed on my USB with rufus, had panic attacks installing the dual boot myself for the first time, and done. After 2 months I switched to Arch (best thing I did) and ever since I'm deep diving in this Programming-Linux-Cybersecurity rabbit hole that I'm quite enjoying.
Fast forward to now, I'm using LFS and compiling my own kernel. My main desktop is a T440p with 4 OSes installed (maybe adding Plan9 to the mix if it supports my system)
I'm planing to mess more with "my own" distro thing maybe installing a Linux system without GNU: Linux + sinit + sbase + ubase + musl
When Microsoft announced the sunset of Windows 10.
I was still in uni at that time. Started with Ubuntu, disliked snaps and moved to Pop. Stayed there for last 5-ish (?) years. It does what I want it to do, I don't care about switching distros now.
Post subject:
Why?
Post content:
Why did you switch to Linux? I’d like to hear your story.
I feel like I've been click-baited.
I used Linux for a good while 20 something years ago. Mostly for recording music and some gaming (you can say what you want, cube/sauerbraten/openarena/… I had a great time that I look back to fondly).
Then got back on windows around vista all the way to w11
7/8/10 all “ok” OS experiences imo.
11… man, this thing frustrates me so much. Everything you try to do is like getting gaslighted. Updates/reboots whenever it feels like, regardless of what you have going on. (My setup requires a few keystrokes at boot, if not the fan goes nuts)
Coming back to Linux feels like a breath of fresh air. Especially now that installing/using it has become a breeze compared to back then. It does what you ask. Why doesn’t big tech corp get that through its thick skull?
Also, my data is mine.
When I first tried it out in a VM, it was just a pinch of curiosity. Some people argue for Linux, so, maybe there's some merit to that? And, unlike MacOS, you can install it anywhere without all the hackery.
When I actually tried it (my first one was Manjaro KDE, and that's what I stuck with for my first 1,5 years later when I decided to go for a real install), I was amazed at how smooth and frictionless everything is.
The system is blazing fast, even on a limited VM, there's no bloat anywhere, no ads, no design choices to trick you into doing something you don't want to. The interface is way more ergonomic and out of the way at the same time. Seriously, Microsoft, do learn from KDE, pretty please.
So, when I moved to a new home, I decided that my virtual home needs an upgrade as well. I installed Linux alongside Windows (on two different physical drives), and ran it as dual-boot ever since. Not that I address Windows that much (normally about once in two to three months), but it's handy to keep around.
Later, I went into some distro-hopping and also got a laptop, which has become my testing grounds. After trying various options, namely Mint, Arch/EndeavourOS, Debian, Fedora, and OpenSUSE, I gravitated towards the latter, and I use it as my regular daily driver on both my desktop (Tumbleweed) and laptop (Slowroll). I love how it manages to keep the system both up-to-date and extremely stable, and has everything set up just right (except KDE defaults, what the hell is wrong with SUSE folks on that end? Luckily, it takes 5 minutes to change). So, there it is!
I heard that the Playstation 3 would be able to run something called Linux and I wanted to become some kind of Neo😅
Then I went on and off between Windows and Ubuntu until fully switching to Linux around 2020.
Running Fedora with Gnome these last few years.
I don’t remember how I did it but I guess it wasb’t so difficult since I had no previous experience.
But I think I only used it once and then moced to something else.
I've used Windows since version 95. I even learned how to use version 3.1 back in the day (people actually used to take classes for using the PC!). Every new version after 98 was a pain in the ass, they'd get rid of a lot of functionality, change menus, and add crap no one asked for. XP might be a nostalgic memory now, but I thought the UI was horrible at first. Same with 7 and 10.
I first learned about Linux through forums, and then I found out about Canonical sending CDs with Ubuntu for free. So I gave it a try and I liked it. There was a lot of tinkering to do unfortunately. Stuff like the cheap ADSL modem I was given by my ISP weren't recognized, so I had to dual boot. Eventually I found some file from one dude who had the exact same modem and knew what to do, and so I was able to go online in Ubuntu. (All of that ended up being very useful knowledge, though. If something happens on my computer, I don't panic anymore, I roll up my sleeves and try to figure out how to fix it.)
I've been alternating between Windows and Ubuntu ever since. I switched permanently to Windows 10 a few years ago for some reason I don't remember. And last year I switched to Pop! OS after finding out about Recall. I was pleasantly surprised by how far gaming has come in Linux, so the switch is permanent this time. I will switch distros, however, once I switch my hardware to AMD.
22.04 currently uses X11, yeah. But the COSMIC DE, as far as I'm aware is Wayland-only. I think they use XWayland or something for some stuff... but I'm not 100% sure about it. All I know is that Wayland kills stuff like xprop and xdotool, and there are no real alternatives. Now it's up to each DE to figure it out, I think. Supposedly KDE was going to work on mouse gestures, but it's one of those sponsored works people say they'll take and then they go AWOL.
Eventually I'll have to rethink how to place my keyboard and mouse, so I can be comfortable without mouse gestures. I have some physical limitations, so easystroke was helping me a lot, but it's one of those things most people don't care about, especially in the Linux community which tends to be more reliant on keyboard. 🤷🏻♂️
I'd dabbled with Linux and multiple distros in the past and while I liked what I saw I had my frustrations. Various distros had their pros and cons and I wasn't as technically capable back then.
After Windows 11's unnecessary launch I gave Windows 10 LTSC a try. I don't think it was LTSC specific but my experience was buggy as hell and would BSOD every other day. So I thought I'd force myself to use Linux and have used Arch or other flavors of Arch ever since. No sink or swim, I was just going to live with it and not deal with Microsoft's bullshit anymore.
I had a not-very-computer-savvy friend with Windows 7 who didn't want to upgrade to 11 but Steam and some other programs stopped working for him, so I tried out Mint as a dual boot option and told myself that I'd switch back to Windows when I needed to.
I ended up never booting to Windows again; everything I needed to run worked just fine in Linux, either natively, or with Wine, or with alternatives that were actually better than what I was using in Windows.
I bought my son a cheap little computer, basically a windows version of a Chromebook. When windows needed an update there wasn't enough memory to perform it, and the computer would no longer connect to WiFi. I thought this was very dumb so I figured out how to remove windows and install Mint. Was impressed by how well it worked.
When I needed a new computer I bought a $150 thinkpad and installed Fedora. Been a fedora main ever since
I was not about to put up with windows co-pilot or recall and had already put up with enough ads and bugs.
I had been running Debian on my laptop for a year without a problem and then finally Windows 11 started doing this when I was trying to update:
Click check for updates? Same result. Wait a week and try again? Same result.
I could no longer trust that the OS was secure from even 3rd parties, so I pulled the trigger and installed Debian 12 - later upgrading to Debian 13 when it released.
There just is never any going back now - Linux is just waaaaaaay too good.
Now I just need something similar to happen with phones.
Had a 6-year old Macbook Pro that was increasingly difficult to use due to the small SSD-drive (I think only 128GB?). Coudn't really update the OS without uninstalling most stuff due to this. In addition, I had started to get the urge to tinker with stuff again, but ran into roadblocks often (often following a guide to do something in the terminal only to get stuck at inatalling something from apt). Same time I got more and more fed up with Big Tech, so when I was buying a new laptop to replace it, the choice to avoid Apple and Microsoft was obvious. Having used a terminal on macOS, doing work on HPC-clusters (which obviously ran Linux) and moving an increasing amount of my workflow to Got Bash on Windows on my work machine (all three of which reinforced my level of comfortability with the terminal and desire to use it), the prospects of the terminal was more enticing than frightening.
Now I have been a full-time Linux user for three years, my partner, brother and mother have since switched, I manage some bare metal Linux servers for work and IT has finally agreed to allow me to ditch Windows for Linux (although they are taking their sweet time setting it up, so I am still waiting to actually get it).
I saw fvwm in a magazine and it had a really cool 3D look to it and I wanted that. I had never seen anything like that. We were very poor and I only had an old computer, a 486, so it was either pirate software (and there was no version of Windows in our language) or use Linux.
I ended up on Red Hat from a magazine and then later Slackware. I liked Window Maker so I stayed on that for two decades. Learning Linux gave me a constructive hobby, introduced me to free software philosophy, and gave me technology skills. We moved to the United States. When I was 15 or 16, I helped a college math professor install hardware on Linux. When he found out that I was dropping out of a very racist high school, he provided support and I ended up graduating from their college. Those Linux skills came in handy and helped start a career.
I have only ever used Windows to upgrade firmware on a laptop or to download an ISO so I could replace Windows. Like everyone else, I was enamoured with macOS back in the 2000's but couldn't afford one and when I finally could, it couldn't do sloppy focus and that was a pet peeve of mine so I just returned it and got a used ThinkPad.
I moved back to Asia. Now I use sway on Debian and get to ride my bicycle to work and my kids grow up better than I did, so life is good.
It was a challenge I wanted to conquer too but also I increasingly felt like I didn't own my computer. The software was increasingly cutting me out of the ability to modify and use it the way I wanted.
I spent a lot of time in Gentoo early on where patching software was an overlay and recompile away and it was great testing early amd64 bugs and pushing the limits with gaim and reverse engineering chat protocols.
I was doing some dual booting then but as i built a career in web development, it became more and more my solo driver. Running the same platform you're developing for is incredibly convenient and Linux runs the web.
Now I can't imagine running windows. Using it and helping people on it is just a miserable experience for me.
seriously hate modern implementations of AI and am willing to make concessions in my life to avoid using it
Props for standing on business and actually taking the steps to make a change
I got a job writing software for Linux servers.
After spending my workday on a mature stable operating system, going home to Windows or Mac became frustrating, to me.
Various challenges required paid-but-still-kind-of-buggy software on Windows or Mac, that I had mature stable solutions for on Linux.
I spent many years installing free software recompiled for Windows (in cases where it was available) so that I would have the same quality of tools at home as I had at work.
Eventually Ubuntu and Linux Mint hit an ease of use that made me feel silly last time I went through the effort that comes with activating Windows.
When Commodore went bankrupt and my Amiga started to fade away I was forced to buy a PC. And because I didn’t want to have Windows 95, I bought S.uS.E. Linux and that’s the way I am now. And I’m happy to be Linux user all these years.
Switch implies I only have one computer .... I have many, including several servers.
Ever since I have memory I've been a tinkerer and linux being OS enables you to do amazing things ... along with open source software.
I (dont) use arch BTW ... Windows on my gaming PC (because of antichieat amongst other compatibility foes) Mint on my personal tablet and Proxmox on my servers
Homework.
College used linux because I did computer science.
Topic: concurrency.
College then gave us a programming assignment that required adding a code library, which I had never done before or even heard of, and thus did not understand.
Since this was a library that was platform-specific, they had made one library for linux and one for windows.
Way too late I got the gist of it but still couldn't install the library.
Since the question contained the linux directory structure I was convinced that the windows library was broken and every other college student finished this task in Linux.
Thus I installed Linux.
Ten years later I understood and finished the assignment.
My heat was out and I needed a way to warm my apartment so installed Gentoo on my Dell XPS. /s
That was around the time Windows 2000 was coming out and I couldn't afford a copy. I'd been dabbling for a year or two before. That was my first and last dual boot computer. MythTV really sold me on linux.
I was tired of Windows 95.
Plus I was in grad school and was trying to avoid studying.
gcc hello.c. And since then I've fallen in love
Tired of the constant pop ups in windows 10. The constant upselling of their product.
An OS shouldn't get in the way of what you are doing and Windows was always popping up some bullshit.
Simple. Windows caused a lot of Problems I simply could Not solve.
Besides that Microsoft became Something I do Not want to Support much longer or willing to giveaway my privacy.
And yeah. Linux Runs better.
I learned to use linux decently in school. Used it for servers, etc at home.
Windows had its auto updatee, and eventually drove me mad enough to dual boot. When the updates started crash boot loops and I literally couldn't use it anymore... I finally swore off Windows.
Its not all sunshine and rainbows, but i have had a much better time woth Lonux, and feel much better about it.
Looking at all the sheisty things theyve talked about and/or attempted, such as screen recording everything for AI, contemplating ads in file explorer, forced one drive integration slowing basic operations down... I have no desire whatsoever to return.
Because Windows XP was a hot pile of garbage.
One day, my network driver broke. None of the discs worked. None of those incoherent "wizards" Windows loves to use worked. Reinstalling Windows broke more things. I couldn't get online for about 2 months.
One day I was at the bookstore and saw a Fedora Core book with an OS disc. I thought it was cool so I convinced mom to get it. Went home, blundered my way through the install and everything just worked.
I cannot for the life of me understand how XP is routinely loved by everyone. It looked like a muddy fisher-price toybox.
I had used 95, 98, and 2000 at that point. All of which I mostly enjoyed. Me I used in my grandmothers computer and yeah...it was rubbish.
However I'd say it was less of a "Big leap" and more of a "Quick give us something that's almost as good as 9x!"
We had a fundamental disagreement regarding the role of technology in business operations. In my view, technological change in an enterprise exists in tension between the business desiring a solution that perfectly fits their process and the flexibility of a technology package to approximate the business requirements in a cost-effective way. Ideally, technology should fade into the background so that you don't even notice or think about it as it facilitates your work.
Microsoft seemingly disagrees.
My specialty is telephony, a space that Microsoft has only recently ventured into with a competitive and cost-effective, if feature-poor, offering in Teams. Telephony is a complex topic and the way telephones are used in business today is varied from people who barely use their phone (but want it when they need it), to people who depend on specific telephony functionality to do their work.
The meeting I had was in a beta-user group for new tech in that space, it was me and about 40 other admins from a variety of large businesses and a team-lead in Microsoft product house. Basically, it was a group of customers becoming increasingly exasperated at the arrogant ignorance of someone in charge of developing telephone technology at Microsoft who didn't only have limited experience with enterprise-level telephony, but insisted that business units conform their processes to fit what Microsoft was willing to develop, and I want to emphasize here, that the audience was more than willing to meet the vendor halfway here, it was Microsoft insisting that people didn't really need basic things like busy-indicators.
I spent about an hour getting more and more angry to the point where I just wanted to get rid of everything Microsoft, but I couldn't torpedo Teams at work, so I went home and installed Mint on all my PCs (and later switched to Garuda).
Back in 2002 it was eye candy.
Compiz compositor. The 3D cube and wobly windows.
And still Linux can be the most beautiful UI of all OSes out there.
Always tinkered with Linux, since eeeearly Red Hat days, but took the first full move when I set up my home lab and needed to host some docker containers with hardware pass-through.
Turned out my hardware was a bit too new for the kernel I had to install so ended up teaching myself a lot in terms trying to get everything to work.
Because of that I got quite comfortable on the terminal and from then, the UI suddenly made sense, because I understood better the concepts underneath.
Run three boxes with various versions of Linux now, a couple more if you count dual booting, a couple more if you count Mac as some kind of Frankenstein UNIX.
I tried many times before, mostly pushed by friends nerdier than me. Always failed.
Now I am on Mint since a few months pushed just by myself not accepting AI slop force fed to me by my computer and having become very protective of my privacy since GDPR (I am the DPO at my company).
I must say it has become incredibly user-friendly (at least on Mint CE) and as a gamer, I am very satisfied with both performance and variety (I would have said GabeN be praised one month ago, but I am slowly moving my library to GOG/Heroic, for similar reasons, so the praise has to be shared).
Went to Linux when I was a teenager, went back to Windows.
My return however is a lot more bittersweet. One of my cats died. The other cat went into mourning. Wanted to keep him company while doing my shit, so I took my old laptop and installed Xubuntu on it. While I was using it I realised that Linux had come a long, long way since I last used it and I could use it as a daily driver. Got a new laptop soon after and installed Mint on it.
Then Windows on my main PC started demanding I update. Realised I couldn't afford to, both software and hardware wise, so I decided to go full Linux. Never looked back. Typing this on my Laptop running Fedora while I try kill time before an interview.
TL;DR: I came back to Linux because I wanted to hang out with my cat while he mourned.
My dad was a software developer so growing up, there were Linux textbooks in the bookcases. Sorry if was inspired by my dad to try Linux in and off in my teens. Was fun a kid failing and then succeeding to install Linux and distrohop through the various flavors of Ubuntu and what not.
Then in university my cheap laptop was running poorly on Windows 10 say I started experimenting again with Arch, Mankato since I didn't really need any fancy proprietary software.
Finally, now in 2025, just pissed off with Windows and decided I'd go all in with Linux on my desktop gaming PC. It worked well enough or my laptop and my home server, and really considered that it was not games that required anti cheat that I really loved, so I just dove in with Bazzite.
Because open source, like the right to privacy and the diversity it can offer, always has something for everyone.
In the end, W*'s recent choices, such as ReCall, and the intrusions into our privacy, finally convinced me to begin my transition.
Until now, I had been observing opinions for the past five years.
The fact is that I am not a programmer or a specialist in these subjects, just a very small amateur, and Linux has long been off-putting.
Having the time and a computer to experiment is not that easy. But with an old computer, I finally have the opportunity to test Linux Mint... Others will undoubtedly follow.
I always say that to change operating systems, you first have to figure out how to replace proprietary software or applications with open source ones, because most of them are also available on Linux.
That's what I did on my mobile, and now the next step is to choose a custom ROM such as Lineage or /e/OS, etc.
I don't like corprofascism.
Mint rules so far. Been enjoying it for several months now!
I woke up one day, and copilot had been installed on my PC overnight. I didn't like that lack of control. This was, coincidentally, a weekend that my wife, kid, and dog were all gone. Since I knew Win10 only had a year left, and I had the time, I figured it was as good a time as any.
I downloaded Fedora and Kubuntu. Spent a bit of time with each, and went with Kubuntu. For a few days. It had issues waking from sleep, and I had to do some kind of tweaking with every one of my games to get them to work.
I don't mind tinkering with stuff, but i just don't have the time to make my computer my hobby. So, I switched to Mint. Everything just works. So, I put it on everything else. I guess the one time I really had to dig into terminal stuff was getting a wifi driver for my living room PC off git. Other than that, super easy.
Now, I'm coming up on a year of Mint. Couldn't be happier.
Réunion d'accueil des nouvelles et nouveaux à Paris par XR Paris-Nord
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