I don’t want to top that. And I’m so sorry you had to go through that.

I built an MSI file once.

I love asking,

“What sick fuck thought this was an acceptable solution?”

And a few moments later:

“Oh. It was me.”

Oh…That would explain the endorsements by barbeque chefs on the book sleeve.

I get that.

I take some comfort that - I know I won’t outlive every asshole, but I think I can outlive a bunch of them.

(This bunch in particular. A bunch of them are ancient.)

The bigger problem right now is that unlike revolutions of old, this time there are millions of people who adore and cherish their overlords and would literally fight to the death to protect them for no other reason than ideological.

This is a message the media owners want us all to accept.

In my experience, very few people want to die or commit violence for some billionaire’s agenda.

Most people just want to live their lives and maybe live to see the assholes in charge have to pretend to care what the rest of us think.

Your choice, of course.

But there’s something to be said for living as well as well can in spite of the bullshit. Especially if there’s folks that rely on us.

Crazy how ethics work. Like a pig might be more physically and mentally capable than an individual in a vegetative state, but we place more value on the person.

I looked this up in my ethics textbook and it just went on and on about pigs being delicious.

I think I might try to get a refund.

Most KDE apps will run on Gnome and vice-versa, but they might not run particularly well under those conditions.

I used to run into issues with this all the time. Recently, I find, for poplar apps, there’s always a version built for my chosen desktop environment.

Of course, I’m not very picky, anymore: Libre-this, Open-that, Free-Whatever. I usually find the one that comes up in the app search is good enough for what I’m doing.

I feel like linux demands an understanding of the relationship between hardware and software more than windows does.

Yes, when we install Linux on something that didn’t ship with Linux installed.

But in an apples to apples scenario - pre-installed OS provided by the manufacturer, it’s Windows that comes with more bullshit.

And there are (finally!) plenty of options to buy a pre-installed Linux computer, today.

It’s a tiny fraction as many as pre-installed Windows or Mac, of course. But it’s still plenty. There’s a half dozen companies with solid reputations and hardware specialties, and I only need one.

I haven’t especially heard the Linux or Rust stereotype, but it’s fair enough for a funny joke.

Stallman is one of the world’s most prolific C developers, so that part of the joke may be just making fun of his (likely) reluctance to adopt Rust, which is often recommended to C programmers.

My little sister has two, and most of her friends do too. It’s weird.

I suppose that makes sense. Support has gotten much stronger, in the last decade or two, for using multiple monitors.

Plan to share a link so the hackers can check your work?

I’ve heard good things about vibe coding primary use cases for common problems.

I have experience vibe coding unusual use cases. The AI was worse than useless for those.

So I’m curious how the corner cases and security stuff on common problems turn out. (I always get that kind of thing from a framework, so I have no experience vibe coding those cases.)

(Genuinely curious. And obviously, no worries if you don’t want to risk sharing.)

The picture was slow to load for me, and I expected Beanie Babies or some kind of precious metal or BitCoin.

Have you considered turning it into a paint ball arena?

It probably wouldn’t be a good investment, but it would make a great story.

I had not heard of Trinity Desktop. That does look like a much simpler path to beautiful Windows XP stylings.

Apparently, many people want to make Linux look like Windows 95?

I’d say Linux is somewhere around early Windows XP when it comes to usability for a normal person.

I was confused until it struck me that maybe you don’t consider Windows XP the peak of operating system user interface design.

I’ll admit, Vista really messed with my perspective.

That’s why we got together and agreed on one version of Linux to recommend to new adopters.

Even technical folks aren’t huge fans of RTFM.

If I’m doing something incredibly interesting, and I’m asking for help, I should RTFM.

If I’m doing something routine, we can (and usually do, now), make it simple enough not to need a manual.

Oof. Sorry you had such a bad experience.

Pro tip for others: It takes time for volunteers to reverse engineer new proprietary laptop hardware.

If the laptop manufacturers aren’t advertising Linux support, it’s up to the community to play guess and check, to figure out what the proprietary drivers do.

You might get lucky and pick the same exact model as a passionate reverse engineer. Or you might not.

With old stuff, your odds are much better that someone has figured it out for you.

For new hardware, it’s still essential to pick a vendor that chooses to write and release Linux drivers.

This will get better when truly open hardware platforms gain popularity.