shirro

Not sold on declarative systems in all domains. It often creates unnecessary complexity for little advantage.

Immutable root has huge benefits in large deployments for consumers, enterprise or servers. Really great for Chromebooks and consoles. Probably would benefit the majority of Windows installations, certainly in enterprise. I do not like the idea of critical systems being updated with random shit becoming standard practice as in WIndows/Clownstrike land. Those guys have normalised insanity to the point they think we are the crazy ones.

However I like to mutate my desktop and development systems. I use linux because I like the freedom to tinker and that includes the freedom to mess stuff up. In practice having root writable only by a privileged user, a signed software distribution and knowing what I am doing mostly keeps me out of trouble. On the very rare occasions I find myself without a bootable system (it has happened to me more than once in 30 years) I know how to recover and it doesn't stress me.

I purchased in December 2022. I have not needed to buy any replacement parts but availability appears good.

At the same time I bought one of my kids the cheapest MSI laptop I could find for school. I just learned some of the keys on the MSI have been working intermittently. I have no idea what to do with it. We didn't value a laptop for running Microsoft Word very highly and spent the savings on linux desktop upgrades. I can't say it was the wrong choice. With the Framework it is trivial to check the connector or order a replacement but there was a substantial price difference.

Out of selfishness I would like people to keep buying Framework so they keep their replacement parts stocked but blind brand loyalty is stupid. People don't need remuneration to engage in a hobby but if they are working for a company then unpaid labour is generally an abuse.

I have a Framework 13" DIY running Linux. It is functional. I am reasonably confident I will be able to buy replacements for anything that breaks which is important to me. It is well designed for repair and upgrade but other devices offer better price/performance/features. If you are on a tight budget and care about the environment buy used.

They run Windows and all this third party software because they would rather pay subscriptions and give up control of their business than retain skilled staff. It has nothing todo with Linux vs Windows. Linux won't stop doors falling off Boeing planes. It is the myopia of modern business culture.

Windows usage isn't the cause of dysfunction in corporate IT but a symptom of it. All you would get is badly managed Linux systems compromised by bloated insecure commercial security/management software.

I isn't even a Linux vs Windows thing but a competent at your job vs don't know what the fuck you are doing thing. Critical systems are immutable and isolated or as close as reasonably possible. They don't do live updates of third party software and certainly not software that is running privileged and can crash the operating system.

I couldn't face working in corporate IT with this sort of bullshit going on.

Same here. Ext4 is an excellent general purpose file systems and a sensible default. It lacks features that are useful, even critical, for some use cases which sometimes rules it out but it certainly isn't obsolete.

Currently school holidays here and we have multiple machines running Steam on Linux all day playing a good variety of games. None of them are competitive online games that require a rootkit so we are just fortunate I guess that the household prefers co-op lan games, sims etc. I suspect these rootkits are about as effective as anti-doping in sports. Determined cheats still cheat so anyone installing malware to play those sorts of games is probably fooling themselves.

Apple, like Nvidia, are a hostile hardware platform. I have a lot of respect for the ingenuity of the people who invest time and energy to unlock closed hardware. That is the true foundation of the free software movement. I am far less sympathetic to people who support these vendors financially and then complain when things don't work. Caveat emptor.

Windows 9x was extremely time consuming to install with multiple reboots and before that it was all config files. Out of the box 95 couldn't play media, connect to the internet (thanks trumpet), even access a cd. Normies bought machines pre-installed and got help when the system shit itself. Before there were scripted alternatives large scale Windows deployments were all imaged because of the hours it took to set up a single machine swapping floppies and writing to spinning rust. You had to reboot numerous times and use third party drivers and apps for everything. I recently installed a disposable Win 10 to do a firmware upgrade and Microsoft have come a long way though having to disconnect the Internet to get a local login is very dark.

A camera in every pocket isn't so good for the ASD kid being mainstreamed into high school with a severe phobia of having his picture taken.

Got several kids at regular public schools (not in US) and their policy never allowed phones during school hours from the start. It is pragmatic and doesn't cause any drama. The kids get messages home if needed and can collect phones when they leave. It is a relatively normal society where kids walk and ride to school by themselves and parents aren't obsessed with stalking kids or bubble wrapping them.

Schools have a duty of care and sadly are as much baby sitters for working parents as they are places of learning and phones create more problems than they introduce opportunities.