cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/27756512
(Apologies if the link doesn’t work; Google are dicks)
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OK I was with him for the first 4 minutes about why Windows is unusable, but this was so irritating to watch. Hyperactive videos like this drive me nuts, someone talking loud and fast and editing so there is not even a millisecond gap between sentences. But the audio aspect still isn’t hyper enough for this guy, no! the video has to be the same way, showing just his hands, gesticulating wildly the whole time. UGH.
So anyway, once I got to where he finally gets to the subject of Linux and immediately launches into the typical bullshit where he says to use Linux, you have to use the terminal and know how to write scripts, I quit watching. Most of these “I tried Linux!” videos are like this. I only clicked on it because the title said he actually switched to Linux.
I felt the same a year or so ago when he went viral. some of it pretty funny, but it wears off quickly. I binged a lot of his videos, then haven’t watched one in at least 6 months. it’s a lot of high energy squealing and talking about his battery when he knocks it over.
Awww. The poor pkcell!
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.
I just checked his video about switching to Linux and I’d say it’s going to scare most potential users away more than attract them. His use case is extremely specific and even kinda creepy for a not savvy person.
I agree he didn’t do a good job evangelizing Linux. He made a video about his experiences with it, but I do think it’s representative of someone googling and first time trying Linux on their own without a guide friend to tell them, “oh you can do it this way now.” Him ultimately sticking with it in spite of that for data sovereignty is kind of the whole point of Free Software so I can respect that.
Creepy???
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.
I’ll check him out. Thx.
He also has a nugget cars channel where he reviews and tinkers with cheap old cars (and does things that outright would be qualified as torture if cars were sentient), also a music channel where he shows his drum playing and of course Frank’s channel, where he shows his pet snake, Frank. He calls it The Garbage Network.
“He”? I thought it was a brand of headphones lol
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.
Where do you have to enable fractional scaling in KDE? Worked out of the box for me when I installed that recently. Sure you don’t mean Gnome?
Fractional scaling is available, I remember using it from the settings. There is really nothing left to be configured from console anymore, and if there is it seems to be the apps themselves that pose a problem
So wait, are we really saying it’s newsworthy every time one person switches to Linux?
Elsewhere in the thread people say he’s an “audio guy”, so that’s actually kinda neat if he’s going to Linux.
We’ve made progress on the Linux gaming front, now we need to dispell “Y’but you can’t use Linux if you’re into sound.” :)
Where have you heard that? The whole reason jack exists is professional audio
I’ve mostly heard it from musicians on various distro forums and such for some reason. You’re right, there’s JACK, and low latency versions of kernels and all sorts of other stuff. (LMMS is more than fine for my experience level lol)
Mainly I think it’s because a lot of the fancy paid DAWs or plugins boil down to Windows, but I’m not an experienced musician myself to really know what their exact complaints are.
I think it still might just be FUD generated by frustrated people, because sometimes you gotta do a little more than “unzip and run” for a lot of plugins.
You really should check this guy out tho. He’s heaps fun to watch!
This entire video is gesturing hands in front of an apple computer. So fun!
I guess you had to be there, he has some very fun videos. His garbage time videos are a lot of fun if you like watching people mess around with shit boxes. And if you’re into drums, he has the drum thing too.
I guess if you’re boring and like watching others play games you could just play yourself. There’s hello, I’m gaming. He tries to make it more interesting but it’s gaming so.
The best way to encourage adoption is to be miserable as fuck about every topic and event.
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.
the Steam Deck effect.
Ubutu
M’butu
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.
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.
What do you mean by an escape hatch. Valve have been messing with hardware and Linux for way longer than the Steam Deck.
“Escape hatch” specifically refers to the speculation that Valve is positioning themselves in a way that they can’t be forced into paying fees for existing on the Windows platform, and that if push comes to shove they can say they only support Linux now. This hasn’t happened yet, but it’s a strategic stance which will likely prevent it from even beginning to happen. This doesn’t have to do with the Steam Deck specifically; it was also part of their intentions with the Steam Machine and etc.
Huh. That’s actually a pretty good take.
It’s not a take, that was their actual reasoning behind it. Gabe knew Microsoft well, as a former employee.
I would also wager that Valve was worried about Microsoft attempting to use “creative” methods to compete with Steam and chipping away at them, like hidden API. Its not like Valve knew that Microsoft’s attempt would continue to flop so hard for decades that they couldn’t even try that.
Yeah no, it makes heaps of sense. It just initially sounded to me like the person was implying the Steam Deck is Valve’s escape hatch from running the Steam store. Which would be ridiculous, the two business sectors aren’t even close to the same order of magnitude.
Sometime around Windows 8 Microsoft started making noises about closing the Windows ecosystem and making people buy software through their store. This would have shut things like Steam out, so Valve said “Okay, we’re going to make a Linux-based gaming platform, because we think gamers will follow us and not you. Also we’re going to create console-like gaming PCs called Steam Machines and make our own controller, because we think we can win against Xbox, too.” Microsoft didn’t lock down the platform, Steam Machines didn’t really go anywhere, but it laid a lot of the groundwork for the Steam Deck.
Thank you for the history, I appreciate it. Hopefully Valve releases SteamOS properly soon, it could be the resurgence of the Steam Machine!
It actually feels like in a few years, the year of the linux desktop will become real. Not even joking.
it’s a very successful rebrand. people Ive talked to hate linux as a concept but will use a deck
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.
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 sorta 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.
ive never paid for photoshop though
Try editing HDR photos.
I need you to understand 98% of windows users (and computer users in general) don’t need or use photoshop and advanced photo editing
This isn’t about being fancy with Photoshop layering together bracketed photos - modern flagship smartphones all shoot direct in HDR. Basic edits in stuff like Apple Photos on the Mac or Google Photos take this into account.
Again: According to Adobe itself, 98% of computer users don’t use photoshop AT ALL. That includes windows users. It’s a problem only a few people have.
I literally said it has nothing to do with Photoshop - if you shoot a photo on your iPhone or Google Pixel it shoots in HDR, and then you just use the built-in editor on your PHONE, it will edit in HDR. Linux is worse than Pixel and iOS stock photo apps at photo editing. I don’t know why you’re obsessed with Photoshop.
That’s because the thread is about photoshop
Sure. Many computer users have some specialized software they need. It’s not about only professional software either.
My phone records video in 4K HDR. Editing and viewing that on Linux is a pain to not possible last time I checked. Or software to do my taxes is absent. There’s also nothing on Linux that’s close to Apple’s GarageBand, which I use once in a while for fun to make music. If Netflix is now available in more than 720p, I haven’t checked. For vector illustration Inkscape is just no fun to use compared to Affinity Designer. For Software Development I haven’t seen a nicer git client than Git Tower. Screen recording was also painful last time I tried it.
I have tried Linux on the desktop from time to over the years. The weak point were always the applications. Often they are inferior to those available on macOS or windows. Support is practically nonexistent. Packages in the repository might be years old. So far I haven’t found a Linux desktop application that actually got me excited. Something or other also seems to be broken every time I try using it for longer. A ton of work on distributions seems to go into yet another desktop environment instead of actually useful applications. Upgrading between releases of the same distribution is often painful or even not supported at all.
I’m glad that Linux exists and it can be very useful for sure, but it barely meets my use cases and just isn’t a joy to use overall. My main use case for Linux on the desktop is to explore Linux. For an operating system and software available free of charge, it’s truly impressive though.
4K HDR
Normally I use kdenlive to edit video, which supports 4K AFAIK, but although that doesn’t support HDR it looks like DaVinci Resolve supports both.
Taxes
That’s surprising. Turbotax and Quickbooks have online options, and there are a few native apps like GnuCash, but I haven’t used them—TurboTax works for me.
GarageBand
Yeah that’s too bad. I hear good things about Ardour, though. Also, bandlab if you’re okay with a webapp.
Netflix
I only stream on an actual TV, not my computer, so I haven’t done this in a while, but I thought you could do this in Firefox with DRM enabled? If not, seems like there are addons which enable it. Might be outdated knowledge.
vector illustration
Fun is hard to come by
git client
Git clients all suck for me, CLI is the way to go. However, my co-workers that use git clients all use GitKraken (on macOS) and that is available on Linux, too.
screen recording was also painful
Won’t argue with you there. Don’t know why it doesn’t have first-class support in many distros. I hear OBS Studio works well for this if you want to do anything fancy with the recording, otherwise there are plenty of apps for this (Kazam might be a simpler choice).
barely meets my use cases
I think really (considering the above) your main issue is that you just have some strong software preferences. There are certainly ways to meet most if not all of the use cases you listed. It requires a big change in workflow, though.
For what it’s worth, I find that most of the issues with software alternatives in Linux is that everyone often recommends free/GPL replacements, which are invariably worse than the commercial/non-free software the user is used to. But there is paid software in Linux land, too, remember. In my case, I have often found that if I can pay for the software it will be better, and if there’s a webapp version of something non-free it will often be better than the native FOSS alternative. There are many notable exceptions to that rule, but money does solve the occasional headache.
your main issue is that you just have some strong software preferences
Yes, I want to use applications and do something productive with them. An operating system shouldn’t be an end in itself.
I avoid browser based software because the UX is always a bit icky. It does fill lots of niches for special software you are right.
I have often found that if I can pay for the software it will be better
Yes, developers need to eat, pay rent, etc. Culturally Linux users don’t like paying for software. That in turn leads to the indie developer scene you see on macOS for example to be very small.
Even donating to FOSS projects I use can be a hassle. And of course I can’t feasibly donate to the developers of all the packages on a Linux distribution. It would be cool to pay a monthly subscription, that’s then distributed among the software I use or have installed. That could be integrated into a package manager even. I don’t know if any Linux distro does something like it.
It would be cool to pay a monthly subscription, that’s then distributed among the software I use or have installed. That could be integrated into a package manager even. I don’t know if any Linux distro does something like it.
I’ve been thinking the same thing lately. It would be cool if at least there were some sort of metadata maintainers could include on packages saying, “if you want to donate money, upstream accepts donations at this link: <…>”. Then I (or someone else) could put together a tool that helps you track what upstream projects you’re donating to.
I understand that isn’t nearly as easy as just a subscription though. The issue I see with that is legal - you’d need a legal entity specifically for accepting payments and disbursing each upstream project’s share, plus all the accounting and such that goes along with it. I don’t see why it couldn’t be shared across multiple distributions though. Upstream packages could create an account with the funding service, then distro maintainers could include some sort of
Funding-Service-ID: gnu/coreutilsmetadata and a way to upload a list ofFunding-Service-IDs to the funding service’s servers.I think that would be doable, but it would require buy-in from distributions, upstream maintainers, and someone who could operate such an organization. Not to mention users.
Sorry but saying Linux users don’t like paying for things is just not true. In fact stats about gaming from Humble Bundle (I think, don’t remember exactly) demonstrates the opposite: that Linux users will happily pay and on average more than windows users.
As for paying maintainers of important packages etc I think states (and corpos) should start doing it given how much of the IT infrastructure depends on them.
Tbf the taxes thing is only a US and maybe a few others thing.
@hellfire103 I switched over a few months back to avoid all the new M$ bullshit.
No regrets.
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.
I think of him as a zillenial version of Ashens.
Aussie Techmoan with Ashens for good measure.
That is actually the best way of putting it.
If it works on electricity, there’s a chance I’ll yell at it
or something along these lines he’s got as a channel title, and I think it describes the content in a very cromulent way
He’s ranting about Windows for over a year (technically even longer) now and was promising a video about Linux, glad to finally see it after waking up.
I assumed he was big on Macs for their own sake. It’s a thing, for music geeks - and obviously he’s a fan of iPods, specifically. Surprised to hear his objectively correct summary of Windows versions.
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 got the confidence to really jump into Linux after the Steam Deck.”
I offer my son (16) to get him an “office” computer for his room so he can do homework and emails and junk. He said he felt so comfortable with Linux because of the Steam Deck and we could instead just get a nicer monitor and a docking station and he will use the Deck as a gaming machine AND office workstation whenever our main computer (also Linux) is busy
I think it should be really clear to everyone now that the Steam Deck is exactly the kind of thing that Linux needs: nice hardware with a well-integrated OS that is designed to be user-friendly and has some guardrails to prevent you from breaking it.
“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.
It’s as complicated as you make it to be, and that’s gonna vary WILDLY per person lmao
Everything is complicated if you aren’t willing to commit/learn.
If you learn how to do a complicated thing, it’s still complicated.
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.
True, meanwhile my HP printer had a hell of a time trying to work on windows much less finding an actual downlosd for the scanner tool on HP’s websitr for a printer ovrr 5 years old and on Linux I typed
yay HP,1, then I was ready to print and scan.Plus KDE discover is the convenience if the Microsoft store was actually good.
Settings are ACTUALLY in setting instead of being split between settings, control panel, individual tool auto diagnoses, powershell, and registry edits.
KDEconnect works seamlessly and I can also locate my phone if I lost it in the house.
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
spezwindows.Maybe it’s just me, I always had issues with Ubuntu and Debian based distros that I didn’t have with Arch based distros. Why do people say Arch is harder? That was never my experience. I’ve been using endeavorOS and it’s been pretty great.
For me it’s the wiki. Arch just explaining so simply. Searching an issue for LMDE just lead to forums. And the Debian or Ubuntu wikis don’t seem as good as arch.
Plus must searches for <other distro> issue seem to lead to forums and random “run this code”. All arch searches led back to the Wiki. All hail the wiki.
But srsly. I feel like I’m LEARNING Linux with arch. Rather than just running fixes for the other distros.
Arch does tend to keep packages as close to upstream as possible, which can be both a good and bad thing. Sway not binding to
graphical-session.targetby default is a little strange for example. Other distros also save a first-time user a great deal of configuration for things they probably don’t care about as well. Going through Fedora’s install and finding out that disk encryption and SELinux were configured OOTB was very nice to see personally. On the other hand Arch’s installation (w/o archinstall) has you choosing a bootloader, audio server, display manager, etc. Nothing arduous and I like it, but definitely not for everyoneThis is all eliminated by spinoffs of course, but even there users have the option to run random scripts/AUR packages without vetting them. Also doesn’t help that the most popular Arch-based distro for a while (Manjaro) was pretty flaky and generally incompatible with the AUR (despite saying otherwise), leading to many people saying “that’s just Arch” and swearing off the parent project as well
It really comes down to if you are trying to use newer hardware or not. Debian based systems usually run fine out of the box on older systems.
For newer hardware your going to want new drivers and kernel versions which you get with a rolling release distro.
I had a printer I could not in my life make work on a Windows PC (2017). Then I tried my Ubuntu laptop, no drivers installed, just worked.
Fuck 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.
If you go immutable then I really don’t think it is unless you need niche software
HAHAHAHHAHA
where can I get a NixOS Flare?
Niche software like the Microsoft suite? It all depends on the environment you use it in I think
Libreoffice is fine unless you’re doing something niche, so yes
I’d argue this is a wash. Linux is more convenient in many ways but Windows is in others.
Precisely… which means switching to Linux is not inherently less convenient than windows
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.
onya m8
