this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Depends on what you need. Personally, over the years I've been inclined to at least try a FOSS alternative when available and have found some really cool projects by doing that. It's also cool to see those projects evolve over time and trade blows with the "official" apps they're competing with.
However in some cases it just might not be practical to do so, especially if the alternative isn't mature enough to rely on. I'd say at least take a look at the alternatives and give em a fair shot.
I will mention in the case of projects like WebCord you're essentially getting a cut down version of Discord, with some extra features added in some cases. Basically custom clients like WebCord have to be based on the web version of Discord (essentially what you get when you open it in a browser) and because of that will be missing features like Krisp noise reduction and hardware encoding for video which can be dealbreakers for some people. Those features and some others are only available with the native Discord app which alternative clients cannot be built on top of. So there's a hard limitation there as to how much these alternatives can accomplish.
There are others like Ripcord which are entirely custom clients, not just loading web Discord and modding it. But something like Ripcord will be missing a lot of features that even the web version of Discord has, so not really an option unless you just need basic voice and text chat stuff.