Interesting. I'm thirty-something and I do seem to remember my grandparents using "jerk" to mean "idiot", but for my entire life I've always thought of it as a kid-friendly way to say "asshole".
It always confused me when my grandparents would call someone who was perfectly nice a "jerk", and it wasn't until I watched the Steve Martin movie four or five years ago that I understood why.
I hadn't heard of D2, but I love the idea that I can create my charts directly in Neovim in the terminal to get a rough draft, and do a final render with a pretty picture.
This actually looks pretty neat, particularly the integration with Flatpak.
One thing that confused me when I first went to Linux a million years ago was the difference in how you install stuff. With Windows you download an exe file, double click it, next next next finish, and you have your app installed.
With Linux, every distro is slightly different and it's almost never quite as straightforward to people. I think Flatpak has the potential to bring that kind of Windows-style of installation to the masses, and it always kind of annoyed me that Ubuntu doesn't embrace Flatpak outta the box.
Download a package (disk image) - macOS automatically extracts to the desktop. Drag and drop the application from the disk image into the /Applications directory. Done.
This is the way, I believe, most software should be installed. I understand some stuff might need to touch system files and for that, perhaps a wizard makes sense.
The Mac way kind of depends on how you get your application. Sometimes applications come from the app store, sometimes they're ZIP'ed files that get auto-extracted, sometimes they're in DMGs that are mounted but not extracted, and sometimes they open some kind of install wizard.
Some of them you can open by right-clicking them and hitting open. Others just open directly. There are also apps that throw up an error when you try to open them and you need to go to the security settings to hit an oddly-placed button to open them. Whether or not you've managed to run the program at least once also seems to influence whether or not an app in the applications folder actually shows up in Launchpad.
Windows does half of this too these days, but these days every OS is confusing and needs specific know-how when you just want to run the tool you downloaded.
It has been years most distros allows you to install apps through tools like Gnome Software or KDE <whichever its name is> which look exactly like an app store regardless if you are using flatpak or regular packages.
Honestly, the fact that to install software you have to go on a site, download an installer, and run it, is one of the reasons why I don't like Windows.
Not only that thing is time consuming and cannot be easily automated, but it's error prone, you are likely to find in the first Google results not the official website of the software but some other site like Softonic that with the software also installs bloatware/malware/toolbars/etc. Of course an expert user can distinguish the official site from a scam, but usually the average computer user can't.
What I like about Linux is just that you type in a terminal (or you use one of the many GUI that exist) `sudo apt install <software name>` and a version of that software, along with its dependencies, it is installed. And not only installed, but packaged, if needed patched, and tested to work along with other software in the distribution. When I install Windows I spend at least 1 hours going to every website of software that I need, download the installer, run the installer, click next, next, next, and repeat. With Linux I can just type in a single command every software that I need, let it run and install it, while I do other things.
And when you need to uninstall a software? On Windows you need the uninstaller, that if it was not created correctly, or created at all, will leave a lot of stuff on the system, files, registry keys, broken links, cache files, etc that you need to remove either manually or with some "cleaner" programs that do more harm than good, for that reason an installation of Windows needs to be formatted every X years cause of the accumulated crap.
From a developer point of view, and I've done many times, writing an installer for Windows, even using open source frameworks like NSIS, is a manual operation that is time consuming, can induce in errors, you need to learn a specific scripting language, etc, while making a package for Ubuntu/Debian (for example) is a simple operation, as simple as put the files of your software in a directory, put in a metadata file, and launch a command to produce the package. Most build systems (automake, cmake) already can create deb packages automatically with commonly used plugins.
An interesting anecdote for you about just how much an exe/dmg equivalent may be the missing link to mass adoption:
My older brother needed a new laptop. A little bit of background about him, he is not technically inclined at all and doesn't want to be. He uses Siri to operate things like alarms and reminders on his iPhone because he doesn't know how to use them. I even offered to show him, he doesn't want to know. This is someone for who an alarm clock app is too technical to get involved in.
So anyway, he needed a new laptop, and I of course had a fair collection of Thinkpads so gave him one of them; loaded up with Fedora (Gnome as the DE). I installed the basics he uses, pretty much just Chrome and the Spotify Desktop app.
He's been using that for a few years now and far less than having difficulty with it, he actually loves it, and says (I suppose mostly due to the speed of it) that he wouldn't want to go back to Windows.
Now obviously Flatpak can install everything he uses there, but I think for most people, that being an option rather than a requirement is scary. Windows doesn't have the option of using .exe, thats just how you install things, like it or not (*yes I know there's winget and whatnot, but you've gotta be pretty in the weeds to even be aware that exists). And if you want to install some non-free software, you can find yourself in a difficult position.
Clearly from my brothers case, Linux is now at a point where anyone can use it, I do think the last missing link is a unified executable/installer, that works across distros (in his mind, he's not using Fedora, he's using linux) and works in the same way as exe and dmg. And not just as another option either (see xkcd 927), but as a core requirement of shipping on Linux, and that's a far more difficult problem to solve.
You can also download an MSI file
... or execute a Powershell script
... or install via chocolatey
... or install via myget
... or install via winget
... or the Windows Store
Not quite as straight forward as you are suggesting.
It used to be that simple but Microsoft (and others) are intent on copying Linux here. That would probably be fine on Windows as well as Linux if there was just one standard.
MSI files are still basically the same experience as the exe. The rest are pretty developer-centric, except the Windows Store, which I agree is more analogous.
Yes, this makes sense, since most distros use a "standard release" system. The intention behind it is to keep your OS stable and only apply security patches at some point.
If you want to have a system with always the newest software, you need to use a "rolling release " system. I think Arch Linux is the most popular (arch user btw). This is much more fun, if you know what you are doing. Otherwise you will end up with a broken system pretty fast. Ofc you can fix it, but depending on experience and skill something like Ubuntu is the better choice.
It's one of those things, I think younger people would adapt to Linux just fine because of the reason you stated, but I think people my age (or my parents' age) would have the most trouble with it. When I learned how to use a computer, outside of the Commodore 64 that I broke as a little kid, I learned to download .exe files and next next next finish to install, as did my parents.
> Others can just run a distro for people who believe in open source software.
What about Flatpak is contrary to open source software as you seem imply? Flatpak itself is free software, so is most of the software packaged with it. There are quite a few good reasons to use Flatpak, especially for developers who want to make their software available on different distributions without wanting to worry about packaging separately themselves. There are valid criticisms of it, but being somehow against open source software or being somehow related to Microsoft is not one of them.
In the spirit of conversation I will give you my take on this.
Things I hate: Flatpak, Snaps, Docker containers, SystemD (different I know, but worth a mention due to the strong emotions nonetheless). Obviously too big a topic to talk about everything, but one common theme in all of them is they are often presented as the only way to do things by the developers that use them. The projects that use them tend to be harder to customize than they should be - sometimes much harder. Some of them, like Snaps and SystemD, get shoved down my throat so I hate them with a smouldering hate! And I won't use Ubuntu or derivatives any more. If you want to make a derivative distro, use Debian, use Arch, use openSuse, use RedHat.
I don't love it when I see so many projects on github where the project is a docker image or a flatpak - instead of writing an app that I can directly install on at least some flavor of Linux, with an optional wrapper / container / package. Of course I understand why its done, but it does feel a bit antithetical to the spirit of open source if I have to do a ton of arcane work to decouple your project from these containers (all of which have obvious downsides as well as upsides) just to use it directly in an OS - which is ultimately where all this type of software runs.
Why write beautiful or useful software, and lock it in a box? Technically, of course it remains open source. Yes, I can probably laboriously take it out of the box. No, locking it in the box in the first place is not as effectively open as if it had never been placed only there in the first place. Developers who want to do this are totally free to do so - just it will rub me wrong and I won't appreciate their work nearly as much. That is a trade off I presume they know they are making for many users, so to each his own.
Practically? I have opted to avoid all flatpaks and snaps, and to only use appimages - to avoid having a variety of these tools with their variety of performance, maintenance, and security concerns to deal with on my system. I chose appimage because snaps are terrible and I much prefer the fuller inclusion of dependencies in an appimage compared to flatpaks just duplicating what a repository already does - and sharing dependencies between apps. I only use appimage if I really need a piece of software and there is no other packaging available. Similarly, I only use docker off my main device, but there are a few projects that require me to use it. I will always prefer an LXC or a VM first if I can.
That's my own little world. I know it doesn't matter. But I would guess it fits pretty close to the sentiment and practice of a lot of people.
Huh. I'm sure there's some projects that release exclusively via docker or snap/flatpak, but in my experience that's pretty uncommon. Far more often I see a release page with a dozen or more options. Binaries for Arm, AMD64, flatpak, snap, a few flavors of Mac, dockerfile, and of course the venerable tarball. The advanced will have deb and rpm as well. I see these options as very much aligning with the spirit of free or open source software: everyone can pick what's best for themselves.
Obviously when the choices are removed and there's cramming down throats, that's a problem. And I'm sure being forced to shuck software from a container would leave a bad taste. However I don't see the popularity of the formats you dislike as causing a broad decline of those you do.
I agree! I think the easy/simple thing to move towards is more compatible ABIs, and just... running standalone executribles, unless the program triggers a certain complexity threshold most don't.
Calling it (edit: using the term) "free software" is a great example of utterly failing to promote your own principles, and stabbing the entire mission in the face.
Let's try to repurpose an incredibly widely used pre-existing term, that means almost the opposite of the essence of our entire mission, to mean our mission. And every time people tell us that's moronic, we double down. As we continue to watch people somehow totally miss the point of the mission, but surely the fact that we're mind-bogglingly self-sabotaging at advocacy can't have anything to do with that. We should totally keep stabbing ourselves in the face.
IMHO, it is one of the most shameful failures of marketing of the last century.
Flatpak is unambiguously and undeniably free and open source software and the fact that you think it isn't demonstrates that you have been misinformed. The Flatpak project is licensed with the LGPL. Furthermore, the vast majority of software packaged with Flatpak is free and open source software.
I don't understand this. The software is free. But calling it "free software" is a mistake?
And I don't understand the advocacy angle. Is any reference to "free" or "open" in any tech-related conversation automatically advocacy (even if the author did not intend to be an advocate for it)?
Genuinely curious. Apologies if it doesn't read like genuine curiosity, I am genuinely curious.
I run NixOS so I have my own opinions on the best way to package software. I'm just saying that I think Flatpak is, if nothing else, good for people who want to transition away from Microsoft.
My parents are both pretty smart people but I genuinely doubt that I would be successful in converting over to Linux if they have to type `sudo apt search my_package` and then `sudo apt install my_package` all the time. For people like them, who have been on windows for the last thirty years, I think that Flatpak is great.
> if they have to type `sudo apt search my_package` and then `sudo apt install my_package` all the time.
As opposed to the much easier `flatpak install com.fqdn.app.name`? Don't confuse underlying package format with CLI/GUI; Synaptic, GNOME Software, Plasma Discover, etc. are fine ways to install normal packages.
Have Obsidian stopped requiring that you pay for a commercial license to use for work? I know it wasn't enforced but I think the free license limited you to personal use.
I bought a commercial license three years ago, and I don't really mind paying it, but then my job for the last year expressly forbid the use of Obsidian [1], and as such I didn't feel compelled to keep paying, though I still used it for personal stuff.
I looked at their website and it looks like the commercial license is optional now?
I don't really mind paying for it, I think it's a pretty decent notes app and I probably get more than $50/year of value out of it.
[1] I'm not 100% sure why, I think it might have been because the people doing the approvals thought that the Sync was an intrinsic to the app and they were afraid of company secrets going out.
> Have Obsidian stopped requiring that you pay for a commercial license to use for work?
I don't know if they ever required that, but they certainly do not now. They encourage purchase of a commercial license, but it explicitly is not required.
From the FAQ on their pricing page:
Do I have to pay for commercial use?
No. You are not required to pay for a commercial license, however if you are using Obsidian for work in an organization we encourage you to purchase a commercial license to keep Obsidian independent and 100% user-supported.
You can, but _you_ need to figure out how to do it.
If don't know how or can't be bothered, you can pay for Obsidian Sync - which Just Works.
I tried to roll my own syncing with syncthing and iCloud and Dropbox. In the end I spent so much time debugging and dealing with files clobbering each other mid-sync I figured out $4/month to support a project I use daily isn't too much.
Zero problems since and I use Obsidian regularly on 4 different devices.
You can absolutely sync your vault without a paid subscription. Simply save it within your OneDrive or Google Drive folder. Alternatively, you could use Syncthing if you prefer a self-hosted solution.
It's not "boneheaded". Shit ain't stupid if thy shit works. This HN user is just a troll with condescending traits and arrogant tendencies, don't feed their ego.
I just don't think it's that bad. Even if it spawns a process for each frame when you're scrubbing, it seems to run fast enough on my computer.
If you want to do a lot of advanced video editing then yeah use a real editor, but if you're just doing a quick trim it's really not a big deal to spin up a few dozen very-short-lived processes.
It’s probably be more efficient to convert the video to multiple frames in batches, and then buffer them. Spawning processes is pretty resource intensive.
I mean, "resource intensive"; that's technically true but the processes are pretty short-lived and only one spawns at a time as far as I can tell. It's definitely more overhead than an in-thread thing, but still not that much on modern computers.
I agree that it would be more efficient to do these things in batches but I really don't think its current state is that bad, at least for a V1.
This is pretty interesting; I had never thought of using Emacs as a video trimming thing, but why not? I've trimmed videos manually with FFmpeg and I've thought about building my own GUI to do it, so Emacs is as good a choice as any.
I don't really use Emacs but I love that people use it for everything; next step is a non-linear video editor.
Twenty years ago, there was more than a dozen websites that people went to.
At this point, what percentage of searches are just end up with the user clicking on Amazon, Reddit, or Wikipedia? So much of the other content is low-effort slop, even before AI.
I haven't found a good replacement for YouTube that isn't just filled with conservative conspiracy stuff, but for search I've been happy with Kagi.
It cost money but that doesn't bother me too much, because it means they have a means of making money that isn't just selling my data. I also like that I get to rank the results instead of a program trying to predict what to rank at the whims of some kind of marketing.
It's a natural consequence of YouTube's practices unfortunately. If the majority of banned users are weird racists and the like, the majority of people looking for an alternative will be likewise.
The only other major market is weird tech nerds like us, but tbh, a lot of us would rather setup a peertube node then actually make any content for it.
I did used to have Rumble installed on my phone specifically for a single creator that was banned from YouTube, but this guy isn't racist, and isn't even conservative. The ads on the videos were something, lots of conspiracy baiting and "vaccine alternatives" and gold investing. I uninstalled it after a few months because it was using an obscene amount of data, even when I wasn't using the app. I don't know why and I couldn't be bothered to investigate.
I have a super fancy video camera that I bought specifically to make YouTube videos, and I had fun setting it up, but then I realized I don't have any ideas for videos to make.
> YouTube that isn't just filled with conservative conspiracy stuff
I often see people complaining about this; but it's just not something I ever experience myself (provided I'm using my account, of course). While I do cultivate my YouTube recommendations using the "Do not recommend again" menu item, I think I've only needed to click that a few times a year - plus most of the videos I watch are from video producers I'm subscribed to (mostly retrotech, sci/tech/edu youtubers and archive film accounts; I do subscribe to a bunch of defence-economics and political youtubers but only because they don't engage in theatrics: it's all very bookish and academic, so that also helps keep the bad content away.
...so if you're seeing extremist and/or conspiratorial content, may I ask if you're clicking the "Do not recommend" menu option (not just the Dislike button) - and have you built a Subscriptions list of consistently non-extremist content? I imagine those are the 2 main things that informs YouTube's recommendation algo.
one yt alternative would be odysee, another newer project that is not super similar to YT, but an alternative for people looking for more educational, family friendly vlogs is https://lifey.org - still a new project, but growing
If my youtube subs' sponsored segments are anything to go by: Nebula, CuriosityStream, and Magellan.
...though the the problem with creating _good_ content on YouTube that still gets watched by millions over a decade after it was originally posted (looking at you, Jay Foreman) is your sponsored segments and this-month-only coupon codes will age poorly.
Part of the whole appeal of YouTube is user-generated content. It's fun to see stuff that people have made that wouldn't realistically make it onto TV.
I'm saying what you're suggesting isn't even analogous; the main appeal of YouTube is user generated content. Netflix and cable TV are competitors in the sense that they are competing for your time, but so are video games and blu-rays and books.
Something like Bitchute or Rumble or Odyssey are more analogous to YouTube specifically because they're designed around user generated content. This is not a pedantic detail; the appeal of YouTube is the sort of "infiniteness" of it; there's millions upon millions of videos on the site and a lot of them are appealing to specific niches and subniches.
With curated content like Netflix or cable TV, you cannot have nearly the diversity of content.
Sorry, bad wording on my end. YouTube isn’t filled with conservative extremist content, and my recommendations aren’t either.
I am saying that the “alternatives” to YouTube (e.g. Rumble, Bitchute) are overwhelmingly filled with conservative conspiracy crap; basically stuff that isn’t allowed on YouTube.
I still use it. They finally fixed my biggest complaint about it a year ago, which is that you couldn't use vanilla Clojure lambdas for the Java functional interface, and so you'd have to reify that interface and it was bulky and ugly. Now it works fine so long as the interfaces actually have the @FunctionalInterface attribute.
Not every project uses @FunctionalInterface, but I've been trying to add it to places [1] [2] [3], and now I'm able to use Clojure in a lot more places.
It always confused me when my grandparents would call someone who was perfectly nice a "jerk", and it wasn't until I watched the Steve Martin movie four or five years ago that I understood why.
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