I feel like 75% of Mastodon are people talking about Linux. If you don’t care about Linux you feel alienated. I enjoy Mastodon and Lemmy, but the lack of more diverse subjects gets to me if I browse for too long.
Update: I took your advice and purchased a laptop for Linux, and now I care about it! Problem solved.
have u tryed like, starting to care about linux?
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Honestly, fediverse and my steam deck have me hyped. My next build will be Linux based.
B A S E D
Their username says no.
“Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and saviour Linux Torvalds?”
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Have you “tryed like” not forcing your preferred operating system onto every internet stranger you meet?
As someone who considers themselves a tech enthusiast (through broad optics- I don’t work in IT or have a tech based job or even know how to code, and has admittedly never used Linux), I spent an hour today trying to install tor on my Chromebook which supports Linux and finally gave up. Unfortunately for the average user, Linux isn’t even close to user-friendly
Tor is an application and technically doesn’t even has much to do with Linux itself, except that it also runs on it. Where you using a guide for installing and if so which one?
Chrome OS makes installing Linux applications way more difficult than it is on most other Linux distros.
Chrome OS makes installing Linux applications way more difficult than it is on most other Linux distros.
There’s a lot of other stuff here too, granted Star Trek is 60% of my feed - but it reminds me of the old internet so I’m content.
What else do you like?
Star Trek, Linux, and a smattering of other memes… that’s all I need!
I can help with 2 out of 3.
Although Lemmy is making me want to get into Linux too…
I definitely read all your memes. Thank you for your service!
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I haven’t seen one. Everyone here seems like an expert already… I already have a PC set aside to do it, so it’s just a matter of taking the plunge one of these days.
Probably start with something noob friendly, like Ubuntu?
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I had heard Debian was also very noob friendly, so I’ll probably go with that then. I don’t really have much of a tech background other than amateur hobby stuff, so I definitely need to pick one that’s going to have a lot of instructional content out there.
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Canonical’s pushing of snaps sucks, but in my experience Ubuntu “just works” on every piece of hardware I throw it at in a way that even Debian sometimes doesn’t. (IDK why, and – having gone through my Gentoo-tweak-everything phase 20 years ago – I can’t be bothered to care.)
Point is, Ubuntu is fine. Just let the noobs use it; don’t put them off with quibbling . It’s fine.
Pop_OS or Mint solves the issues with Snap by cutting it out, I’d recommend other people use those because Snaps introduce many minor frustrations that don’t make sense unless you know what you’re doing and that you’re using snaps.
TL;DR for those who don’t know about snaps, Ubuntu has a thing that makes some apps not work quite right all the time, Pop_OS and Mint don’t have that thing or have a different thing that works better most of the time.
Do it it’s tolerable. Yeah I got convinced by you people. But I’d always wanted to be one
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I believe Technology is the top active community.
I feel you on gaming though. I try to be active in niche subs for games I’ve played recently, like Armored Core and Baldur’s Gate. The demographic on Lemmy is no doubt perfect for building up gaming communities - I bet a venn diagram of Lemmings and people who you would find at a con is practically a circle. I think we just need to get some more started.
I bet a venn diagram of Lemmings and people who you would find at a con is practically a circle
None taken
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Just gonna go out on a limb and say most cheap tech projects are probably running on some open source code.
You are limiting yourself a little bit by not being at least slightly interested in it.
Classic Linux propagandist move
To point out reality?
“I like tech, but I don’t actually give a shit about how any of it works” is a really weak take.
Not really
Most people don’t care how their shit works, they just want it to work. People like OP, who seem to have a semi-casual outlook on it aren’t going to need to know how or why anything works.
Then they don’t “like tech.” They like toys made with tech.
And?
That describes 95%+ of the population. I’m a software developer and feel largely the same way as OP. You don’t need to know the intricacies of something to enjoy using it.
Stop gatekeeping shit because people don’t want to be as invested in it as you.
There’s a few specific gaming communities. They’re small, but I can say growing daily. I’m actually a mod of !satisfactory@lemmy.world for example. If one doesn’t exist and you feel up to it, make a community too. I’m sure there are people who are interested. The communities are small, but through nurturing we can grow them up to a nice size.
Check out https://lemmyverse.net/communities, I don’t know how many are active but it only takes one person to make it active!
You need to follow more tags, like game-specific tags and specific tech tags. Sometimes I think federation fails to show all content in the tags, so following more people might help too
In case you’ve not seen it, https://fediverse-explorer.stefanbohacek.dev is really useful for getting around this.
What are these tags you speak of?
I think it’s in mastodon and not lemmy.
There are apps that you can use that follow all posts with that one word in it, like liftoff. The lemmy dev was saying they were working on a tagging system, and I thought maybe that came out and I missed it.
Your parents: we’re content creators.
I would say just subscribe to stuff you like and don’t doom scroll for hours. A 15 min session is all you need to catch up for a day in your interests. Also make some posts in stuff you like and care about.
Totally. While I do want the Fediverse to grow, I have to admit enjoying that the scroll is not quite endless. It really highlights how much garbage we encounter on a daily basis that exists purely to distract and entertain us since I don’t really feel like I’m having FOMO or anything but I’m scrolling way less.
Twitter was designed to be addictive, whereas Mastodon was specifically designed to not be addictive. That’s why scrolling Mastodon feels so boring after a while.
I am subscribed to a shit ton of Linux related communities, but seems like I don’t need to ;D
Have you tried installing Linux?
Yes, yes. Oh, yes. You must try the Linux.
It’s the FOSS equivalent of have you turned it off and on again?
These comments are really proving your point
I’m also in the same boat. I’m simply not interested in running Linux as a daily OS, and pretty much any gaming or tech content here is exclusively that. And then when you express any sort of counter opinion you get attacked.
I’m honestly finding myself scrolling Reddit without participating a lot more than I’m on here.
Android and ChromeOS are also ignored :-D However, I hope you don’t want to talk about operating systems cause now everybody just talk about AI :-/
Android is good. ChromeOS is just normal linux turned against the user
I’m intrigued at this notion that ChromeOS is Linux turned against the user but Android isn’t…
I’m thinking about pure Android which is open source. I could’ve written that better…
Android is pretty turned against the end user also, their sideloading permissions seem to be explicitly designed to annoy or scare people out of using it, and in my opinion isn’t really needed because we had the one toggle and it’s not like it grants the apps permission to install the apps themselves, it just allows you to click a button. It’s a process designed to add more steps to frustrate the user.
That doesn’t even mention many of the under the hood changes made over the years to worsen user experience, like preventing or making difficult internal audio recording.
Then there’s the whole anti-root thing, which honestly shouldn’t even be a thing in the first place, if you’re going to claim phones are like computers why aren’t they open like them? I do not and will not buy the “security” argument because even windows allows you to delete the entire registry with enough persistence, but on android you have to either get permission from OEM or use an exploit to install root before getting that access.
Okay, Linux phones will be the absolute freedom and make Android obsolete. Once the phones are mature enough
Only if they don’t fall into the same hole android fell into. Many early linux phones use locked down BIOS or Bootloaders (I remember seeing a video of one where the person couldn’t restore it because they didn’t have the software). So they’ll be absolute freedom only if they ship with Coreboot/UEFI Booting, otherwise they’re no better.
I’ve not gotten attacked, I play online multiplayer games and Linux just isn’t an option for my favorite games.
Granted I do want to eventually set up a dual boot setup, but rn my personal computers are either windows or macOS. I’ve talked w people about Linux, and we just agreed it can’t do everything yet.
On Mastodon, I hardly see anything about Linux, but I’ve been curating my feed, subscribing to hashtags and then seeing people pop up saying interesting things, then I check out their feed and maybe follow them. It takes more work than Twitter, but your feed is exactly what you make of it.
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I have used Linux, I use Linux remotely for work all the time. I very much dislike using it as a desktop OS. It’s still not a functioning gaming OS either. However, it’s constantly pushed down your throat on this website whenever you even mention using windows.
The difference between our advertising and that of the megacorps is that ours is actually driven by passion and love for what we use and create. And that passion won’t stop.
Ok, and?
I’m not interested in using Linux as a desktop OS. I’ve often made that clear, only to be met with “but have you tried this?”
It does the exact same thing as it does for vegans. Instead of bringing people to your cause you alienate them by constantly shoving it in their face.
I’ve often made that clear, only to be met with “but have you tried this?”
Well there’s your problem! Maybe don’t start a conversation if you don’t want to invite responses.
(Also, I’m not going to point out that your claim that Linux still isn’t a functioning gaming OS is no longer true, since you apparently don’t want to hear it. You’re welcome.)
Until all the major anticheats can run on it I can’t consider it a functional gaming OS. If there are games that work on every other major gaming platform, except for Linux, then it’s not up to the same standard
Just saying that you are dealing with passionate people who will not stop. You can either realize and accept that or be annoyed by them forever
Or you can stop trying to force it onto people. Idgaf about your passion. I don’t want to hear about you being vegan and I really don’t care if you only use Linux.
It’s putting people off of joining the platform. I think that’s clear enough that it’s a problem
Maybe if you’re an asshole to enough Linux users they’ll stop talking about it. Lmao
Then you choose to suffer… Go on, keep fighting against windmills.
You remind me that there really are people who want to be upset all the time. And talking to those people is always a waste of time, so bye
False dichotomy.
There’s also blocking and/or muting.
Doesn’t change the fact they’re annoyed every time they need to block a new person. And there will always be new FOSS enthusiasts, especially on this platform
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My most played games constantly have problems on Linux.
Apex Legends regularly falsely bans Linux players
iRacing isn’t Linux compatible, nor will it ever be
Destiny 2 won’t be compatible either
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Not functioning for most modern games is not functioning. Who cares if it runs ancient games if I can’t play modern ones?
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lol what does “power users” have to do with it? Do you seriously believe power users only run Linux?
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Not sure if you realize it, but you’re exactly proving the point of this thread. It comes of as condescending that you assume someone must be uninformed because they don’t agree with you.
I fully realize that people like you would think that. But hey, you totally weren’t condescending here!
I’ve used Linux exclusively on my personal machines since 2004. I still loathe it. I just loathe it marginally less than I loathe Windows.
Fear not, there are also extreme political discussions.
Political extremity, Linux, and LGBT… I can’t think of any other major category of the fediverse. Memes don’t count, because they’re usually conveying one of the 3
Fibre crafts is popping off on Mastodon tbh
Awesome. Shit like that is the sort of thing that eventually winds up building an interesting space. Like don’t get me wrong, I’m a gay communist who uses linux, I like what’s here, but I want to see other people’s hobbies here. I want variety enough to draw more people so I can stumble into something I didn’t even realize was cool
You missed furries.
For Mastodon, you gotta find the hashtags about the things you care about.
For Lemmy, you gotta put in the work to raise the communities you care about. If there are existing communities, post and comment in them. If there isn’t a community about your interest - and if you’re willing - create and maintain them. The people will come.
I’m all in on the fediverse, and want to watch it flourish.
Plus people will hit you with a chair if you don’t use it and Firefox.
Feels like we’re both getting the wrong content then. 🙃 I do care about Linux and barely see anything about it here.
Same. I get a LOT of news because of what’s going on in the world and some tech stuff. Almost none of it is Linux (and I like it).
and I like it
Get out of here!
Jokes aside… Lemmy has been great for world and tech news! Feels like I don’t need to check my RSS app, or Reddit in order to scratch that itch.
Don’t know how, it’s in every thread and community regardless of Linux affiliation.
There’s people praising Linux in this thread, about how Linux is everywhere.
This shits gonna kill the fediverse.
Before Lemmy, the last time I had touched Linux was back in the 90s, when it was Red Hat on a dozen+ floppies, minimal GUI, and almost all command line. It wasn’t bad, I just didn’t feel like working that hard and there weren’t all that many training resources for it, so I just slid back into to Mac and Windows. No loss.
But over time things change, and I’m not much of a Mac user anymore – their hardware is far too overpriced to keep reinvesting in it, IMO – and after aging out of regular updates on the last version of OS X that will run on my 2016 MacBook Pro, and then trying and failing to build a fully operational hackintosh on a newer Intel NUC, I just gave up and went back to Windows.
But now I’m here on Lemmy and it’s all Linux all the time, oh and Microsoft sucks but lets talk about Linux again, which was a bit much at first. But the truth is that I just hate Windows 10 anyway, always have, and am only using it because it’s pretty much the default now. So I guess I started listening.
After a few weeks of this Lemmy non-stop Linux
promotiondiscussion, I decided to load it up on a 13 year old MacBook with minimal hardware and see if it was any better than what I remembered. If that old MacBook can run it, I thought, maybe I’ll just set it up as a spare. It’s free, why not?Man, it screams. This is nothing like the Linux I remember from the 90s. Holy shit. Even setting up a Linux printer from a Windows share is almost effortless, and I have never been able to do that with only Windows machines. These are full-fledged, well-supported, well-documented operating systems with great video, audio and even peripheral support. And almost all free and open source (I haven’t paid for anything yet myself, though). I was shocked.
So now I’m trying out Linux distros one by one, wiping and then loading another, seeing what there is to see, and when I’ve tried out all the distros I want to try, I’ll install one and bring the rest of my hardware over to Linux. And not only that, but hardware that was just sitting on a shelf collecting dust is now back in full service, and I can think about things I would not have spent money on before, like building a Plex server or a pihole, because now I have a bunch of available hardware. Win/win/win.
TL;DR: People are praising Linux for a reason. Tune out if you want, but don’t be surprised if it ends up working on you anyway, lol.
The world feels very lonely when you care about linux.
I feel there are a lot of philosophical and practical similarities between the FediVerse and the open source operating system world. That’s why a lot of people tend to be on both.
The thing about the FediVerse is that you are the only responsible for your feed. Try looking for different content, different people, or different instances, to find more content that resonates more with you and follow those accounts and communities.
I’ve exclusively used Linux on my computers since about 2001. At this point, I don’t care to see this much talk about it either.
It’s an operating system, it’s free (in both senses), it’s very powerful and ,frankly, it’s all I know how to use these days. However, I just don’t see the appeal of harping on about all the time. I use it exclusively, and I spend zero minutes per day actually thinking about it, the way a good operating system should be IMHO.
Not to be confrontational with you but… Exhibit A
Touche
Thank you. As someone who is very interested in Linux, and someone who has proselytized my tech choices in the past (“Everyone should use Signal”), one of my big fears about switching to Linux is that I’ll never shut up about it, and I’ll bore my friends.
Thank you for showing me that there is another way
it’s harder to do than you think. you can tell people about signal because everyone understands messaging. and telling them to use signal is/was good advice!
Trust me you will never even think to get into the differences between wayland and x11. hate systemd? excited about btrfs? it is literally impossible to discuss any of it without shared context.
Not to alarm you, but you may have a period of 5-10 years where you really can’t shut up about it… it’ll pass, though, honest :)
I switched to full-time, permanent Linux use in 2004. I didn’t even have a one-year period where I felt the need to proselytize it like a vegan.
I find that mighty impressive! I’d blame the folly of youth for myself, but I assume you were also quite young all the way back then. It’s entirely possible that I was/am simply an idiot 🤔
2004? Nah. I was nearly 40.
Ah well, this might explain things. See, I was 21 in 2004, still young with a head full of dreams, and a belief that I could change the world… If I found Linux now, at 40, then yes, I doubt I would have had a single year of advocacy in me!
Oh, I didn’t find Linux in 2004. I switched over to it permanently then.
If the 3 biggest OS were all FOSS, I would agree.
Right now, Linux is the ONLY major OS that respects user freedom and privacy. Full stop.
The community around Linux isn’t there because user preference; the real reason it exists and so many people are passionate about it is because FOSS software is the difference between a future that looks like Star Trek, and one that looks like Cyberpunk 2077.
Believe me, I get it. 20+ years of advocacy, though, have earned me exactly 1 convert, and that’s my old man. Who is arguably already a bigger geek than I am, and spending his retirement teaching himself x86-64 assembly “for fun” whilst doing a much better job of de-googling himself than I ever have.
All I’m saying here is that I can see where the OP is coming from. There is an awful lot of Linux talk (and Star Trek talk!) here on Lemmy. I can see how it might feel a little alienating to those who are from outside of that world.
That said, I agree with a lot of other commentors here that have pointed out that any new platform typically attracts the geeks firstly (reddit was no different). In time, I hope to see a much greater variety of peoples on Lemmy!
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Are you referring to those stripey sock wearers? Because I’m far too old to actually understand any of that. Plus, I wouldn’t even look very good in stripey socks anyway
I’m sure you’d look good in the socks. Don’t undersell yourself. :)
Hahaha, that’s very kind of you to say! I might have even pulled it off 20 years ago… Never say never, eh! ;)
I’m not sure if I look good in them or not, I only wear them because they feel comfy.
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Oh, hush now, of course I care! I’m just agreeing with OP that there is probably a little too much of it or, more precisely, not enough “other” topics of conversation yet. It’ll come.
It kills me that your username is a Windows executable
Tbf, it is mostly tech nerds, all of whom enjoy linux and talking about it, you’ve kind of stepped into a “linux bar” so to speak. This isn’t all our fault! Microsoft users on average are less tech proficient and less likely to seek out tech without tracking opting instead to follow the herd because “it’s easy” or it’s just where their friends are, so they’re back on reddit.
Couple this with the fact that privacy focused things and porn were directly targeted by reddits bullshit, means many of the niche subs users just simply caved, instead of coming here, so there’s less people to talk about building gameboys and comics and whatever, to this all we can do is be the change we want to see in the verse, start the community or join the one with 5 users and scream into the void until it starts screaming back!
to follow the herd because “it’s easy”
Linux users brainstorming on why the operative system they jerk off, it’s only used by knowledgeable nerds instead of the general public, because “user experience” it’s not a word that exists in their vocabulary.
Honestly, I think the user experience is better on Linux. Windows is “easy” because people are used to it, not because it’s good. It’s also has the most Google results and is the default results if you don’t add Linux to your search. Other than that, the UX of Linux is better I think.
Updating applications is done in a centralized place, not each application checking for updates when you open it, which is also when you want to use it not wait for an update. You can customize the desktop and window decorations to be more usable for you. Its got all kinds of things that make it easier to deal with after only just a few days of using it than Windows does. Windows just has money for marketing and a captive user base.
Linux users are the vegans of tech.
It’s more like the people that avoid food contaminated with pesticides and questionably safe additives, but a select few like gnome and *buntu users add it all in anyways either by choice or cluelessness.
Consider this stolen!
Steal away, he didn’t come up with it. Linux users stole the joke “how do you know someone is vegan” a long time ago to meme ourselves, we’re self aware.
“It’s easy” actually translates to “I already know this one and have an unwillingness to learn the other,” which you find out when you realize linux is actually pretty easy too, just different. Gentoo or Arch or something like that excluded, but for distros like Mint, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, etc, that actually does ring true. There is a learning curve, yes, but so too is there one when learning spanish as an english speaker, that doesn’t mean spanish is actually necessarily “harder than english” though, it’s just “harder than speaking the language I already know.” Especially when windows comes preinstalled on most PCs due to corporate contracts, and one has to seek out an alternative.
Also “get good scrub.”
I’ve used Macs for work for a good while but Mint feels nice and light.
I give kde to the elderly and have no such issues
IDK, if both my very-much-not-so tech savy siblings, mother, and even an idiot like myself can all pick up and use it with very few, if any, hiccups, then “user expierence” on Linux is…
Not hard. Or, well, in general as well. The more I hear people go “Learning Linux is hard” and hear them out, the more I’ve come to realize they’re actually trying to say “Unlearning Windows is hard”. Which is absolutely true, considering 95% of people use Windows basically out the womb…and then they keep using it/put up with it no matter what unless you’re like one of my old professors who didn’t “need windows” for his work (and used Mac all the way), or like me and several others who got tired of Windows constantly messing up on me–or being invasive of your privacy, bloated, all of the above. Take your pick–enough where I just said “you know what, no. I have options besides basically throwing dice at the wall with this. They can’t be that bad.” (spoiler alert: they weren’t bad at all).
And again, unless you’re throwing yourself off the Linux deep end from second one and trying to build the system from scratch or compile Gentoo by yourself, learning it isn’t this grueling, impossible task. Plus there’s free resourses that can make it even simpler for you if you want to more than learn as you go. There’s growing pains, yeah, but no different than learning anything new in life
Tbf, it is mostly tech nerds, all of whom enjoy linux and talking about it,
Tech nerd: yes. Enjoys Linux: no. Enjoys talking about Linux: not really.
That’s one in three.
