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I said no and Apple said yes

886 points · 701 comments · thatslast

  1. vitro · · focus · HN ↗
    Not trying to start flamewars, but more and more I wonder how much are people willing to put up with such practices. On linux for 15+ years and everytime I try to use mac or win, it is an ordeal. And ads. F*cking ads in a system someone has purchased. And spying. Really user hostile environment. No, thank you.
    1. cosmic_cheese · · focus · HN ↗
      Because Linux is full of sharp edges which nobody seems to find it fit to fix.

      I’ve been dabbling in Linux since the early 2000s with Yellow Dog, SUSE, and Ubuntu, tried making it my daily driver in the early-mid 2010s, and for the past 5 or so years have been using it in a secondary/tertiary role.

      Recently I’ve been trying to move my gaming box from Windows to Fedora (which I’ve found mostly makes the right tradeoffs to suit my preferences). I’ve gotten things to mostly work, including games that have been blockers in the past, but just yesterday my ethernet connection listing disappeared and broke network connectivity. No big deal I thought, just go into settings and add it back, but as it turns out the KDE settings UI for NetworkManager is horrifically flaky and most critically, its add interface wizard doesn’t set correct settings for a successful connection. No, you have to drop down and use nmcli afterwards to fix things because the UI also doesn’t surface the right checkbox. I wouldn’t have even figured that out if it hadn’t been for a chatbot’s assistance.

      This is the exact sort of time-burning nonsense that isn’t a problem on either of the commercial platforms that I tend to encounter under Linux. Is this single instance going to push me to reboot that box back into Windows? No, but if issues like that keep cropping up eventually one will become the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Desire to avoid continued frustration will win over the logical portion of most peoples’ brains.

      1. arcanemachiner · · focus · HN ↗
        These sharp edges are a lot less annoying with agents to help solve the problem.
        1. cosmic_cheese · · focus · HN ↗
          Perhaps, but even as someone who uses LLMs I don’t like them being allowed to run amok on my machine. I don’t trust them.

          They’re also a crutch that shouldn’t be necessary for tasks so commonplace and simple as adding a network interface.

          1. nullpoint420 · · focus · HN ↗
            fwiw, I haven't had this issue on Fedora on GNOME. Ubuntu/Debian have always been a pain for me, but Fedora has been great.

            I see this as IBM/RedHat is a better steward/maintainer than other projects.

            1. cosmic_cheese · · focus · HN ↗
              Yeah, the install was originally a GNOME one, but I added KDE after because it handles some things better. For example, GNOME tray item extensions will crash some tray-item-spawning programs running under WINE/Proton, which doesn’t happen in KDE.

              I think GNOME gets some things more correct (it has a much better grip on design for instance), but I don’t agree with its strictly-minimalist philosophy that makes the macOS desktop look full-featured in comparison.

              XFCE and Cinnamon are probably the closest to striking the balance as far as I’m concerned (and are boring in a good way) but sadly they don’t get a fraction of the development resources that the big guys get.

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