ulkesh

ulkesh , 1 day ago

The way I see it, the issue here is that everyone is trying to solve packaging from the developer perspective. I understand why they do, but the only way to solve this is to instead look at it from the user’s perspective.

Apps should be dead simple to find, dead simple to install, dead simple to maintain and use, and dead simple to remove.

This is why snap and flatpak and appimage are things. The problem here is that they each have various issues within them that break one or more of those tenets from the user’s perspective.

Trying to resolve packaging by going back to same methods that have existed for decades and wrapping them in a bow may help developers in some fashion, but the end users are still going to lament dealing with apps on Linux because it’s not solved — for them.

ulkesh , 3 days ago

Your replies all make a very big assumption that the only connections being made, by people who are advocating VPNs, are over https (or possibly ssh) and thus VPN isn’t necessary. There exists more services than that some of which aren’t end-to-end encrypted (many messaging apps, for example).

Also, I agree that at the end of the day, a user is trusting someone not to snoop. But given that ISPs have been proven to snoop (for various reasons), I personally will put my trust in a VPN provider that I have researched and one that has shown a considerable resilience against outside forces. Mullvad comes to mind here.

Yes, a VPN is probably overkill if all the user is doing is using a web browser, nowadays. But it is useful beyond just setting up a tunnel for access.

ulkesh , 3 days ago

That’s true, thank you.

Some other possible unencrypted services people use today… email over non-SSL (which still does exist). Bittorrent. Non-SSL NNTP, which is also still supported. And DNS.

Of course much of that has options of securing, but the point is that a VPN shifts the trust of them not being secure over to an entity that may be more trustworthy.

And sometimes that becomes the path of least resistance for people.

I use a VPN for access to my house (inbound), but also to prevent my ISP from ever snooping on anything for certain services (inbound and outbound) — content, headers, metadata of any kind. I trust Mullvad right now much more than I trust my ISP.

Not everyone’s use case is the same. But that doesn’t mean it is somehow invalid as some posts here have alluded to. Though, I do agree with some posts here that the commercialization of VPNs is playing on people’s possibly-unfounded fear (NordVPN and the like, putting ads seemingly everywhere acting like everyone is watching).

ulkesh , 6 days ago

Instead of a stream of consciousness, maybe gather your thoughts into a more coherent and succinct post.

Perhaps a simpler query would be:

If the US was utterly destroyed overnight, how would these standards continue? Is there a plan in place for such an event?

Such a query doesn’t rely on conjecture, opinion, or politics to ask the question and get to the answer. It simply poses a hypothetical.

ulkesh , 9 days ago

The answer to that is…yes.

ulkesh , 9 days ago

I like the concept of atomic distros, but the implementation leaves a lot to be desired for me. Having to reboot after installing any software seems counterproductive to me (admittedly this was my very limited experience when I tried Bazzite).

ulkesh , 9 days ago

Learned something new, thank you! I’m old school so it’s going to take some time to acclimate I think.

ulkesh , 9 days ago

Well I'm not on it anymore because it frustrated this old aging brain. I'm currently on Garuda. But I may give it a go in a VM again.

ulkesh , 9 days ago

You and me both. I’d rather it just be Pop!OS. Or just, Pop. Or the better term: Soda.

ulkesh , 9 days ago

I love the fact that System76 is an American company pushing Linux forward (well to certain degrees, anyway). I know they use hardware produced in other countries (for chassis at minimum, not sure about the rest of the components), but it’s still nice to see.

Next time I’m in the market for a laptop, I’ll certainly give them a solid look (hopefully the form factors of the more powerful systems will be less…girthy…by then).

Pop!_OS is quite solid. I’ve used it from time to time. However, I’m partial to Arch because I like to be closer to the bleeding edge (currently using Garuda for my gaming rig).

ulkesh , 12 days ago

Edit: the linux-company thing is just for triggering people, sorry I didn’t know it was this effective.

So you’re a dick. Got it.

ulkesh , 11 days ago

He literally admitted to posting to trigger people. I’m stating fact that by doing so he’s being a dick. The motives of the person matters and he came in here with the purpose of pissing people off.

Clearly it worked for some.

ulkesh , 11 days ago

I couldn’t care less about the original post, but I will also call people out in the hopes that they stop being a dick to others. Anyone who enjoys seeing people get agitated needs to have their head examined.

ulkesh , 10 days ago

The first step in fixing your problem is admitting you have one. Good job!

ulkesh , 11 days ago

while making such weak arguments

Perhaps…

Idiot.

…

ulkesh , 11 days ago

You asked for an example, he gave you one. Then you try to discredit it with a red herring illogical argument.

You should take your temporary ban and reflect on what is truly important in your life. Because you clearly need some help.

ulkesh , 12 days ago

So basically don’t be stupid when on a network you don’t control. I mean I would think that would be common sense by now. Just because you’re on a VPN doesn’t mean that the local network doesn’t have some semblance of capabilities.

And maybe I read it wrong, but perhaps don’t use DHCP on a network you don’t control. Wouldn’t that wholly mitigate this?

I get that this is concerning for people who don’t know any better. But I don’t think it’s as devastating as the title makes it sound.

ulkesh , 13 days ago

Well I guess I’m done with SO now.

ulkesh , 13 days ago

You’re on beehaw, and are spouting that Trump/FOX-level inferiority complex bullshit?

Either you’re trolling and/or joking…or you can rightly fuck off.

ulkesh , 3 days ago

The simple fact you use terms like “libtard” proves the abundance of undereducation you have received. Enjoy living with such idiocy. Bye.

ulkesh , 18 days ago

Glad I dumped Windows in favor of an OS that doesn’t suck.

ulkesh , 18 days ago

Ah, Lunduke. No thanks.

ulkesh , 19 days ago

And if it’s written in C/C++ my trust is further reduced.

Do you trust Linux? Because if so, have I got news for you.

ulkesh , 24 days ago

I’ll grab the popcorn while I watch the dumpster fire of what Microsoft is doing to Windows, from the comfort of my Linux-running system.

Obligatory BTW I use Arch.

ulkesh , 24 days ago

I’m going to buy an AMD video card this weekend solely so I don’t have to deal with the NVidia bullshit anymore. I’m eager to give hyperland a try.

ulkesh , 23 days ago

Yes I know. I have read all about explicit sync. It's going to take at least a few months to trickle into the various packages and distributions and we're still trusting NVidia to give us a proper driver with it as well. And we're assuming there's nothing else that will cause yet more problems with Wayland/etc.

I'm at my wits end trying to be patient with them (on the order of years). I now understand why Linus flipped them off with a loud "F you".

ulkesh , 24 days ago

And the moment a Republican administration is back, it’ll be gone again. This needs to be codified in law, not flip flopping every few years.

ulkesh , 24 days ago

I don’t disagree. And while I agree with the FCC continually trying to keep Net Neutrality alive, it’s a stopgap measure at best, one that will come and go until there is an elected Congress that isn’t full of greedy, sycophantic, whiny, spineless pieces of shit.

ulkesh , 22 days ago

Well here's a few off the top of my head...

1. Interstate commerce is governed by the federal government. The internet is a bastion of interstate commerce.
2. Schools now require the internet for kids. ISPs being allowed to be anything more than a dumb pipe means they have the control of what information is sent across their network.
3. The internet is now a basic human right in the United States for numerous reasons, one of which is #2. Basic human rights have notoriously been mishandled by the states. See: slavery, indentured servitude, civil rights, voting rights, air and water treatment, etc.
4. ISPs cross state boundaries and should be governed by interstate law.

An ISP being a business, especially a publicly-traded one, will sacrifice all manner of consumer/user-protection in order to maximize profit. And having the states govern against that will lead to a smattering of laws where it becomes muddy on what can actually be enforced, and where.

Net Neutrality, as a general concept, must be codified into federal law in order to help protect the common good and interest of such a basic utility -- and yes, the internet is a utility despite in some places, very few in fact, where competition is available.

ulkesh , 21 days ago

Clearly you are smarter than I. Enjoy.

ulkesh , 25 days ago

I was there in darker times, with a modem that had no Linux driver, so no connection at all, learning from printouts from the library.

I may have PTSD from it.

ulkesh , 25 days ago

You are not wrong about Adobe. That is one of the main reasons I see given by many tech-minded people still running Windows or macOS.

Gaming is so very close to having no barrier to entry. With Steam (and Proton), Heroic, and others like them, the ecosystem and ease of discover -> install -> run have made it at least as simple as on Windows.

I know the NVidia woes will soon be a thing of the past (see all the work concerning explicit sync), but I would still recommend using an AMD video card to anyone getting a computer to specifically run Linux. I’m at my wits end dealing with my NVidia card and I’m about to shell out the cash for an AMD so I can run Hyprland and all the things without any graphical glitches (ideally).

ulkesh , 27 days ago

GitHub isn’t what kernel developers use as the source tree, they use kernel.org. If you see any kernel development through GitHub, you’re just looking at a mirror.

I’ve not watched the video yet so I’m unsure of what point the video is trying to make (it looks click-bait-y to me).

ulkesh , 28 days ago

Renamed a drive mount folder, while it was mounted. Back in 1999 with big box Redhat 5.1, it said “okay!” And I lost all data on that drive. I was just learning Linux at the time, without an internet connection since the PCI winmodem I had didn’t work in Linux.

ulkesh , 1 month ago

Yet it’s worse than fascism. It’s oligarchy + fascism. People have money tied to it which leads them to double down on all of it.

These workers were fired simply because it could hurt the stock price. And since the US has subpar labor laws, and half the voting populace who seem quite happy with fascism, the country is quite screwed.

ulkesh , 1 month ago

hugs his Switch and the many physical Switch games he owns

also hugs his Steam Deck

The two aren’t mutually exclusive nor does one random opinion on the internet a fact make.

OP asked for what specific games to get, not some anti-Nintendo rant.

ulkesh , 1 month ago

It’s a good point. I would say I don’t use them often enough to justify owning them, but I use them just enough to be okay with it. I go in spurts. I get on a Mario Maker kick and play a ton on the switch, and then I get on an emulation kick and load up a lot of retro stuff on the steam deck. But I have gone weeks or more without touching either.

ulkesh , 1 month ago

What I find hilarious is that these are just minor hiccups. The emulation scene has existed for a long time and will continue to exist for a long time. None of these recent measures will do anything to stop it as long as the emulator devs aren’t trying to make money off Nintendo IP.

ulkesh , 1 month ago

Let's take that logic outward a step...

Stocks are digital these days. Cryptocurrency is digital. So you're basically saying those should be licensed to people, not owned.

Ownership has nothing to do with the tangibility of the thing in the age of the Internet. And to say otherwise is missing the point of ownership in the first place.

If I outright buy a movie, whether digital or not, I should own it -- be able to download it, play it whenever I want, in perpetuity. If I subscribe to a service such as Disney+, then I fully know that I am purchasing a license to view their content.

The logistics of providing such ownership is the cost of doing business, just like it is for Blu-ray. I would argue that ownership should be even easier, logistically, for digital goods because there is no actual manufacturing effort involved (aside from initial production of, say, a movie).

The only reason companies want to license digital goods, instead of providing ownership to those who buy it, is greed (edit: and control).

ulkesh , 1 month ago

Yes, they actually do. They’re tokens of ownership that can easily be converted to money. It’s called an asset.

This is why this world is so fucked. People quibble over definitions of things while the rich assholes running the show get richer.

And so many in this thread want to keep it that way.

Oh well, not like I can convince anyone here of anything, nor do I care to try. Keep believeing what you want.

ulkesh , 1 month ago

The article in no way describes any actions taken by Valve that leads me to believe there is any impending enshittification. They simply have made decisions, a lot of which they have stuck with for many years.

Enshittification has to do with bait and switch, effectively. It’s luring customers into a false sense of loyalty and then abusing that to their financial gain (see: Reddit and Spez from 2023).

The article basically says “there are some decisions by Valve I like, and some I don’t.” That in no way provides any path toward some bomb going off. Perhaps time will prove the author right, of course, because any company can easily decide to screw over their customers, but the article is click-bait and completely speculative as to what may happen.

And due to all of the above, I think the bomb is about to go off where elephants will fly out of my refrigerator and steal my soda.

ulkesh , 1 month ago

So the author both wants notifications and doesn’t want notifications.

Got it.

Sure sounds like a problem of their own making. And I find iOS’s notification taming rather simple to use. So I use it, and amazingly I have less notifications because of it!

ulkesh , 1 month ago

I find there is no shortage of delusional nerds who like to think they’re better than everyone else. Even here on Lemmy.

ulkesh , 1 month ago

So is it pho-to-pi-a? Or photo pee?

ulkesh , 1 month ago

I’ve been a Linux user since 1999. It was considerably worse back then because not having just the right hardware meant, for example, wasting hours just trying to get ppp to work (note to my past self…ISA hardware modem is the way to go).

Linux kernel and distros have come a very long way. People using it today take so much for granted, which is actually a very good thing. But it still has its quirks and it’s partly why I still, to this day, run Windows as well (and I use a Mac for work). While gaming in Linux has made enormous strides the past number of years since Valve ramped it up with Proton in Steam, it’s not perfect…not yet.

It all boils down to how much continued patience you have for it, and how useful Linux is to you compared to Windows, etc. There is nothing wrong with wiping and reinstalling Windows. There is nothing wrong with dual booting or keeping Linux as the sole OS.

Do what makes you happiest and gets the job done.

ulkesh , 1 month ago

While that is a thing, I agree, the issues on Linux for gaming, for me, is more around how much has to be tweaked to get the framerates to work out well, or which GloriousEggroll build to use, etc.

For gaming on Linux to truly usurp Windows, it has to be as easy as click, setup, and run with no quirks or weirdness for a game or across a swath of games. It really isn’t there yet. I am glad of the great strides that have been made, though.

ulkesh , 1 month ago

Yes, this is what happens when you take a big shit in people's cereal. They tend to leave. I, too, could be an analyst.

ulkesh , 16 days ago

It does! But I recently gave Bazzite a try...yeah I'm not ready for this so-called atomic distro (it's based on Fedora). I'm now, for the moment, settled on Garuda Linux (based on Arch). I'm liking it thus far, but if anything goes awry, I may head back to Manjaro. Garuda is much closer to Arch prime (running 6.8.9 linux-zen kernel where Manjaro is on 6.6.x still). And the chaotic-aur is actually kinda nice. Time will tell if I stick with it!