LainTrain

joined 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 month ago (29 children)

I'm not American, Christmas lights aren't a thing here like they're in the US, can someone explain?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I phrased that very poorly. I'll edit the above to clarify.

I meant that the Windows Control Panel was always a half-assed solution in comparison to what OSX and Linux DEs do with proper settings manager applications.

On Linux DEs, a settings manager like Settings in OSX is usually present, and it is a far better solution.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

My issue with Control Panel is there's no clear delineation between OS and distribution software and installed software.

On Windows, a program you install at any time may do anything like:

  1. Have a settings menu inside the application
  2. Have a separate settings utility install alongside with it that may or may not be accessible from the main application
  3. Place an applet on the control panel
  4. A combination of any 2 or 3 of the above

Bonus: App has registry entries it doesn't tell you about that address options for which there are no GUI representations.

The whole thing is extremely arbitrary and made for a very different world where programs you'd install would be fairly limited in number. Nowadays I have no idea what software runs on my Windows rig and how much of it there is. Between flight simming, racing simming and all the third party crap for all that plus the crap for the peripherals, the endless esoteric drivers for various gear I've used for audio and video recording and playback, helper utilities, virtual audio cables, virtual midi cables, virtual ethernet, virtual mouse, virtual GPU etc etc. Recently I found some kind of Sony audio driver on the control panel. Apparently it came with a Sony DAP I used to use that could be used as a DAC.

What makes this worse is that the Control Panel's actual included items are not standardized in any way. Any applet could have sixteen submenus across three windows and tabs or one. Microsoft was trying to paper over it since Vista and as always just created more barriers. Microsoft is like a slumlord painting over mold and rotting walls with each update.

This just doesn't happen on Linux.

On Linux a GUI settings manager on Gnome and KDE alike will only feature things relevant to the OS configuration and maybe some for bundled pre-installed software. All the settings menus on Gnome are uniform, and most are uniform on KDE. I talk shit on KDE's insane defaults (touchpad settings and minimize all windows applet) but I found the right settings immediately.

On Windows, I don't even know where those settings are, there are some ideas on where I could look but it's honestly faster to just Google it than to guess around where the touchpad settings are.

Windows' attempts to implement this through a unified settings menu is to paper over how the settings themselves were made to be configured through a spaghetti of menus on the control panel, and as such when displayed through a unified settings menu the order and groupings come off as completely arbitrary and nonsensical, and then some options are just outright missing from the Settings menu that are present in the control panel.

It provides neither the features existing users expect nor simplicity that would help new users.

What's worse is that Windows also has to be an ad vessel to make the line go up. Therefore to add to the confusion, the settings menu has to act as a vessel for promoting Microsoft products and thus prominently feature OneDrive, Windows Defender (not even called that anymore), to appear as if they're integral parts of the OS and not applications and services I can choose to not use.

Surprisingly this is also an issue on iOS. I frequently find useful settings for apps in the iOS settings app and not the actual app. It feels so funny that iOS is this highly polished experience, and then you get some crummy Bullshit Calculator app with "restore premium and-free VIP subscription" in the official settings app. Takes some of the sheen off, for sure.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Hah that's what I always had on Debian on my laptop back in the version 9 days (buster?). Nothing's stopping you from doing it now with runlevels. I think with systemd it's just systemctl set-default multiuser.target

You can then always get the full boot with systemctl isolate graphical.target

Might not be the exact command but it's something like that for sure.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

That seems reasonable. Especially since there's no equivalent to the already half-assed solution that is the control panel on Linux.

OSX style settings menus are far better than either the travesty that is the win 10 settings or the aging and questionably designed control panel, especially when it's all tightly integrated with the OS and utilities, and that's present in every Linux DE under the sun.

EDIT: I should clarify that by "already half-assed solution that is the control panel", I meant that the Windows Control Panel was always a half-assed solution in comparison to what OSX and Linux DEs do with proper settings manager applications.

On Linux DEs, a settings manager like Settings in OSX is usually present, and it is a far better solution.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago

That's devastating. I can definitely relate to insane legalese and battles against hostile and otherwise kafka-esque legislation. Solidarity to fellow trans folks from the UK.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

I bet this will get tons of people to go check out that quiz now and show off lol

Seeing this makes me wish I had the talents to be involved in any way with the development of such an amazing project. I've been learning C with the hopes of contributing to FOSS projects like this one day.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I have an ideal socialist libertarian utopia skin to anarcho-communism in my mind as does just about every leftist. But that's not the point.

The point is that we need change towards balancing out rampant economic inequality that has been rising since the 80s and the impact of neoliberalism and trickle-down, the undoing of the priorities shift from private ownership and individualism to public and societal welfare and wellbeing. Towards a future where we can work on things that benefit us all, rather than enrich a select few at the expense of all others. Imagine a job that paid well and meant something, instead of bs job slaving away to make the line go up for some rich guy.

The point is that aligning the interests of society in such a way lead to amongst headier arguments of alienation - environmental destruction in a way that is fundamentally unsustainable and robs our children of their futures in many ways.

What you say could have very well been applied to kings in monarchies of old if one were to merely picture a dichotomy of the current world and a worse one. But that dichotomy is false, we have built a better world in many ways since then. We should do so yet again.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Capitalism is the death of society and aligns the interests of people and corporations alike towards a race to the bottom for maximum exploitation.

EDIT: Death of society may sound like hyperbole, but it's me just paraphrasing one of the biggest advocates of capitalism in history: Margaret Thatcher, who famously said: "There is no such thing as society, only individuals."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I'll give you 7 dongs for this!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Average sh.itjust.works poster

I'm pretty sure the meme is just a hyperbolic, funny, critique of some undemocratic features of western democracies. It's not trying to suggest equivalence or invite comparison to third world autocracies or describe in depth the critiques of the world from a leftist point of view. In that sense it rings true.

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