Obviously, a bit of clickbait. Sorry.
I just got to work and plugged my surface pro into my external monitor. It didn’t switch inputs immediately, and I thought “Linux would have done that”. But would it?
I find myself far more patient using Linux and De-googled Android than I do with windows or anything else. After all, Linux is mine. I care for it. Grow it like a garden.
And that’s a good thing; I get less frustrated with my tech, and I have something that is important to me outside its technical utility. Unlike windows, which I’m perpetually pissed at. (Very often with good reason)
But that aside, do we give Linux too much benefit of the doubt relative to the “things that just work”. Often they do “just work”, and well, with a broad feature set by default.
Most of us are willing to forgo that for the privacy and shear customizability of Linux, but do we assume too much of the tech we use and the tech we don’t?
Thoughts?
We live in a world where the idea of community has been destroyed by rampant capitalism and the death of third spaces.
While there is indeed a lot to be said for something that “just works,” that “just works” demand is borne from a capitalist/consumer process that is literally in the process of going off the rails.
Why do we get so mad at Windows? Because it isn’t ours. Microsoft grows it like a weed on our property. Its roots begin sticking out new places all the time (“hey what’s that new bullshit on my taskbar?”) and has zero respect for your needs as opposed to its needs. Windows only cares for Microsoft’s needs, and it makes that readily evident in how you’re forced to use it.
Linux is the communal kibbutz, Windows is the corporate city.
In other words, Linux is better than we think it is.
Love the image of wheeds just popping up all over your garden where you don’t want them.
It’s a great metaphor for the “HEY, TRY THIS NEW THING!” shit microsoft pulls.
Thank you for this. It is brilliantly put.
I was 100% with you until you decided to go and diss cities.
Cities are great and neighborhoods within them can have plenty of sense of community; it’s soulless car-dependant suburbs that are like Windows!
Tbh it’s more like Raccoon City than an actual city.
I think they dissed “corporate cities,” which I interpreted as related to company towns, like the so-called Foxconn City or iPhone City in China. Not cities in general.
Some suburbs are nice, too.
Sort of like the difference between the cathedral and a bazaar?
Quality reference.
No, because a kibbutz (planned intentional community) would be the “cathedral” in that analogy, and the city (incrementally developed community) would be the bazaar.
I like to think of Windows as the Zelda sidekick of OSes.
Non-stop interrupting what you’re doing to tell you something you don’t need to know or care about, and constant “HEY LISTEN” nags for all sorts of shit that you either already figured out, knew about, or don’t give a shit about.
Don’t you dare talk about Navi like that!
@SnotFlickerman @koen
Linux is the answer, it’s not about choice, the choice was eradicated years ago.
The community alone and fact in 2024 it still not just exists but thrives shows how much we need things like Linux which buck the trend