From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
Some of my fav quotes:
"Ads in an operating system that you've paid for from a company that owns ridiculous amounts of money is so offensive."
"data, it's like the new gold to people"
"I got the confidence to really jump into Linux after the Steam Deck."
[regarding the terminal] "You just see text going across the screen, they're working at lightning speeds."
"I'm kissing convenience goodbye, I just want control."
“I’m kissing convenience goodbye, I just want control."
He is in for a surprise when he realizes GNU/Linux is much more convenient than Winblows.
Arguable
I don't think it's really much different. What makes windows feel more convenient is that everyone generally learns how to use it first. I think if you took a person that is not familiar with either, they would be able to figure out both OS at around the same time.
it really just depends on what hardware you are on. For example my Dell pribter was plug and play on windows . It took me 6 hours to get it to work on Linux.
This. In my recent experience on one laptop. Arch (Endevour OS btw) installed fine.
But LMDE would not boot. I got a system disk missing error every time after install. So much playing with EUFI settings in BIOS, boot back to live disl, multiple re installs, GRUB repair, remake the ISO (ISO was fine, installed on another PC with no issues). Gave up. Just could not boot to the OS.
Install normal mint. No issues.
And past the install? Bluetooth dongle works fine on arch, but so many issues on mint.
WiFi dongle A works on arch, but not mint. WiFI dongle B dosenr work on arch but does work on mint. Took me a while to work thst one out.
Headphpnes have some weird echo back to me when mic is on. Use pipewire config from archwiki. Worked, but reduced qualoty. Tried a few other configs. Didn't work. Must have broke something coz now the original config dosnt work. So will just deal with echo.
0 of these issues on windows. And 0 likely your regular user can easily swap to Linux.
Will stay on arch tho. Fuck ~~spez~~ windows.
Assuming you don't need a windows only application for your workflow (admittedly this isn't very common), it's really just a matter of getting used to it. There's plenty of easy to use distros out there, such as Linux "I'm not buying my grandma a new computer" Mint.
It’s as complicated as you make it to be, and that’s gonna vary WILDLY per person lmao
Damn who imagined that gaming would be the topic that made the FOSS OSes relevant. I don't agree on all that steam does but, they really nail it with the Steam deck and Steam Os.
A lot of people have steam deck and it helps realize that GNU/Linux is an amazing OS.
On the other hand Microsoft and Apple are doing their best to try to give more reasons to switch.
Damn who imagined that gaming would be the topic that made the FOSS OSes relevant.
Frankly, that's been obvious for a pretty long time now. I've been hearing "but I need Windows for gaming" as people's primary excuse for not switching since literally two decades ago.
Gaming has been the only pathway to mainstream desktop since forever. I've been around for a hot minute and I remember that consistently, the "real Linux users" for years repeated "we don't need gaming this is an adult OS go back to Windows and play with your toys" and then turned around and whined that no one wanted to use desktop Linux. Valve stepped in and casually created the year of the Linux desktop as a side-effect of just wanting an escape hatch for their business model. Now the casuals and elitists alike will have a better experience via the magic of Marketshare, and all it really took is not listening to people that don't know what's good for them.
it's a very successful rebrand. people Ive talked to hate linux as a concept but will use a deck
always has been. the one complaint ive always heard for linux is that it didnt run games and photoshop.
most games run now, and photoshop is workable on wine if you are not a professional.
Adobe's licensing model is also a paper sack of hot liquid shit. If you're gonna switch to an alternative it might as well work on Linux.
Funny how he praises immutable Arch + KDE and then uses Ubuntu (Snaps, broken packages, themed GNOME, not immutable)
I hope he finds his way to Bazzite, Aurora or plain Kinoite, as this would suit him way better
I'm thinking he might be happier with Noridian, ZephyrOS, Sylvanix, or AetherForge.
I myself have been trying neoNova, specTRAos, and VortexLinux and they're all pretty good.
...
All of these are made up, I think, I just can't cope with everybody and their dog still rolling their own distros (and alternatives to GNOME 3, thank goodness for KDE), even after 25 years of observing it happen over and over again.
I'm saving your comment to name the next seven distros I make
Those are so legit sounding I didn’t even realise until the second part of your comment those weren’t real.
Granted, I just slap kubuntu on everything because I’m used to managing ubuntu servers and like kde, so my distro knowledge is limited, but still
Poorly, Kubuntu uses the broken Plasma 5.27 for a while until the next release afaik.
Really that was kind of the plasma guys fault, but Plasma 6.0.2 or so was really stable. Perfect LTS candidate. Then the new features came in, now it is stable again (on Fedora).
I used Kubuntu and the outdated Plasma and many packages were annoying. Nowadays snaps, and removed base packages.
Those are not individual random 3rd party distros.
Please read up on that stuff first. I understand how oldschool users find this odd.
(Btw. great Distro names :D)
He wasn't praising immutable systems, arch, or KDE. He was praising a Linux OS maintained by Valve. Many people, especially those not familiar with Linux, simply want to use a distro made by Valve regardless of the technical details.
It's all discovery takes a while to realise what you want from a distro. Fully agree the the ublue projects sounded exactly what they wanted
'I'm turning into a penguin'
Good onya mate!
I never heard of this project before but I just looked it up and it looks like it's about vintage MP3 player upgrading? Anyways nice to see more people, especially ones with niche jobs like this one, switching. Linux is slowly becoming a pretty major thing.
It is actually just an aussie looking at weird audio stuff. He started off with upgrading old Ipods but now he just does whatever he wants.
I like his other channels for drums / drum history (Drum Thing) and cars (Garbage Time), but notably the main DankPods channel has 1.65 million subs which could bring a load of new people's attention to Linux.
Their rough new user experience is concerning though. From what they described I suspect many of their "problems" are not actually "real", but it doesn't really matter because they still ended up in a scenario where they thought there were problems. How did they end up thinking that everything must be done with terminal while using Ubuntu? I know in the last ~10 years there's been a big focus on the new user experience, so what more can be done to prevent this? My gut says there are too many online resources that are confusing new users when they try to onboard themselves - especially resources that are old, written for other distros, or written for people who just want to find the command they can copy-paste to do something.
How did they end up thinking that everything must be done with terminal while using Ubuntu?
When asking for help in a Linux sub/forum/community, the answer will generally use the terminal because it works across desktops and even distros. It's a lot easier to give one or two commands than it is to work out what distro, what desktop, and what settings the querier has, then describe the steps necessary in that particular GUI.
This may lead to the impression that the terminal is required for day to day use of Linux.
Maybe it needs to be more obvious that there are many ways to do things in Linux, and give new users a short "learning to learn" primer on how things operate differently in Linux-land, and where/how to look online for help. There are always first-boot popups but I imagine most people are conditioned to click out of them without even reading; forcing people to confirm a couple times that they want to skip "very helpful reading" may cut down on people that play the search engine lottery on what information they use for their first steps.
Also semi-related, I hope that mainstream Linux eventually "un-stupids" computers for regular people again. I get the distinct feeling that Microsoft and Apple have, at least somewhat intentionally, imposed 'learned helplessness' onto average computer users. "Oh computers are magic no one knows how they work. We are the only wizards that could possibly understand them and we will sell you the solution." Windows/OSX/iOS/etc are so locked down that people have rightfully learned over time that if they run into a problem, there really is no solution. I suspect that's permeating into the new user experience on Linux where people will encounter one problem and throw their hands up and say "fucking computers" instead of using basic problem solving to try another approach.
eventually “un-stupids” computers for regular people again
The problem isn't that people are dumb or don't want to learn or whatever, it's that the vast vast majority of them simply do not care.
They do not care what OS runs Chrome, because it doesn't matter. They don't care about privacy, they don't care about ads, they don't care about AI, they don't care about enshittification, they don't care that Linux or OS X might be better, it doesn't matter.
The computer is a screwdriver, and nobody gives a shit who makes your screwdriver. Hell, a lot of Windows users don't even know who MAKES Windows, because it's just "the computer".
I'd wager that Dank Pods didn't care all that much either - or, at least didn't until the point that something happened that DID make him care, and the real incentive here should be making people actually care that their screwdriver is shoving ads at them and stealing their data and that's somehow worth action from them - even though literally everything you do on a computer does that now.
How you do that I do not know, but the user has to have a solid, definable, clear reason for their change that'll get them past the transition period, or it just plain won't happen.
How did they end up thinking that everything must be done with terminal while using Ubuntu?
Most guides on installing things or help on fixing things will offer terminal commands, so I can see how that could certainly lead to that feeling as a new user.
Also depending on the DE and stuff certain very basic obvious settings are not available in the GUI, like fractional scaling on KDE which has to be done by editing some config file first.
I didnt like very much his video. "You need the terminal to install vlc" wait what ? Ubuntu software library is here...
Also he says he will migrate to davinci resolve once he needs to, but oh boy I've been seeing a lot of videos about resolve on Linux and how painful it is to use (missing codecs, no pipewire support, hates Wayland ...)
I love that he finally talked about it. He shortly mentioned the switch to Linux a while ago, in a gaming video, and Im excited to see if this makes Desktop Linux a bit more popular.
Not sure who that is, but great 👍
I think the worst way to sum up his channel is that he reviews MP3 players and bad headphones. You'd really just have to see it, he's very funny.
It's perfectly normal I guess but I'm still not quite used to seeing so many people who don't know much about linux talking about how they use linux.
How weird, I was just thinking about this guy yesterday after forgetting about him for probably ~5 years. I got pretty into buying, repairing, and modding broken iPods for a little while thanks in part to some of his goofy but informative teardown videos. Still have a small box of parts somewhere.
Haven't watched the video yet, but I'll be a little surprised if he doesn't immediately fire up Shrek to test whatever media player came with his distro.
What is a dankpod?
He reviews/discusses mostly audio related tech (mainly headphones) but also dabbles in more generic mainstream tech like smartphones and laptops. The past few years he's been expressing major frustration with the likes of Microsoft and Apple and I guess for the last few months has moved all his production over to Linux rigs, and even ditched his smart phone in favour of a modern flip phone.
Also he has a car channel called "garbage time" and a drumming stream called "garbage stream." Very funny guy who's definitely worth a watch.
So wait, are we really saying it's newsworthy every time one person switches to Linux?
When that person is a public figure I think it is news worthy. Because it won't be one person but a handful. As I am betting alot of people who follow them will want to try it out as well.
This is advertising 101.
Downside is if the public figure has a bad experience it will discourage many people from not even trying.