This is a tired cliché. Today, a modern Linux desktop like KDE Plasma just works and more importantly, gets out of your way unlike obnoxious MacOS and Windows. Aside of that you get the most advanced OS in the world where the thing being discussed here is a decade old.
The issue with Linux isn’t the software, it’s the hardware. Apple Silicon Macs are still the nicest laptop hardware by a huge margin. All the Linux-native options are, at best, “okay”.
Same here but after 4 months with Asahi on M1 I wouldn't trust it fully. Had 3 freezes/reboots so far and WiFi often hangs on resume to the point I need to rmmod/modprobe.
SELinux is a framework not a solution. Main places that gap is closed are Android and ChromeOS, not normal distros.
MacOS has:
- Serious integrity story
- Actual kernel hardening
- No reams and reams of garbage in their kernel (wouldn't have equivalents to the recent AF_ALG vulns coz they don't have dumb stuff like AF_ALG).
- Filesystem security boundaries retrofitted onto the Unix model (interesting user data, browser creds etc are gated by special permissions that are tied to the application build, backed by the integrity story - a `curl | bash` command cannot dump your ~/Documents)
When people escalate privileges on MacOS it's news, when they do it on Linux it's Tuesday (you might think the recent spate of privesc vulns on Linux was unusual but that is totally normal).
I say this as someone who works on Linux security every day (I am a kernel developer) and uses Linux on every computer I have, both at work and at home, BTW. I am not a Linux hater or Apple fanboy by any means.
These are all solvable problems at EU scale too. Just, I think they should solve other problems first in the priority list of delivering sovereign IT.
Sounds like a very small town? In general most places are filled with shops you can walk to. In southern Europe in particular it's almost overwhelming the amount of options you have.
These days, go anywhere in the world with a pseudo famous landmark and watch the same thing. I've been travelling long enough to remember people being present and taking in the experience. Now it's literal queues for the perfect spot to take 100 near identical photos of themselves, and choose a few later for social media.
I've never understood the need to take a picture of yourself. I know what I look like--I don't need a photo to remind me. The rare times I ever even take a picture of something, it's because that thing is interesting or unique, and I'd like to look at it carefully later.
As someone under 40 who never had any social media, I cannot overstate the negative impact it's had on my peers and their behaviours. Worst thing to ever happen to society imo, I feel for the younger ones who grew up with it.
Whether or not it counts as social media, there is no algorithm targeting individuals as far as I know. Social media in the sense of HN is just the internet.
It does, but as you really can't get money out of it in a reliable way by exploiting the user addictive behaviors, it doesn't have that effect on society.
It's just a cool place to visit now an then an check cool stuff out.
Kind of interesting how many people don’t realize that the purpose of Hacker News was to be an advertisement for Y Combinator and their portfolio companies.
You don’t see it as much these days, but YC portfolio companies can post privileged threads on this site for job listings, which in practice double as ads for the company. You’re not allowed to comment on them.
I haven’t seen one for a while because I suspect every company is already inundated with 1000 applications for every job in this market, but this is what Hacker News was for.
Y Combinator is right there in the URL. People know and don't care because it's a well run forum with interesting discussions, the privileged posts don't change that.
I think most people know this and are fine with it. YC owns the site and advertises their stuff on it sometimes. The site itself is not trying to milk you for every penny or trying to exploit you.
We have social media-like systems going arguably Compuserve and the like, as well as games. There's a matter of "refinement", like how some older people describe the change of drugs over the decades. TikTok, Twitter and many of the games are just "too strong", and it matters. Nobody gets "addicted" to Mario 3 or IRC to the point it resembles alcoholism.
> Nobody gets "addicted" to Mario 3 or IRC to the point it resembles alcoholism.
People definitely became internet junkies in the past. IRC was where you could find chronically online people before that term was popular.
The good old IRC quote databases were full of jokes about people not leaving their house and being online all the time. I remember being mocked in IRC rooms because I was out doing things instead of being on IRC all weekend. IRC was the place for the chronically online. This has always been a thing and it’s weird to see it dismissed so casually.
If you want to be pedantic, everything that has user interaction I think technically counts as social media. So just about any forum on the internet counts. But there's a pretty big difference in an anonymous forum, and something like twitter, facebook etc.
I think it is part of Web 2.0 with its user-generated content, but I think it lacks most of the central aspects of Social Media:
- contacts/friends
- personalisation
- followers
I think some central feeds + comments are not enough, especially with the weak user profile concept (I mean, there are not even profile pictures). But I think some people consider HN Social Media.
because we're not putting our personal lives on display here. it's a news aggregator and discussion forum. sure, some folks post their personal projects, but it's framed as news to be discussed, not desperation for validation.
a) real pseudonymity
b) no photos/videos
c) no infinite scroll
d) no notifications
e) very specific (mildly speaking) topic range
f) very very good ranking and filtering algo
....
(g) guidelines designed for curiosity and intellectual discussion that are enforced by the moderators. No "real" social media platform has anything similar. (so maybe it's more like a discussion board? LessWrong/old phpbb forums)
I grew up with social media but at the start of the year I quit all of it and deleted my accounts. AI slop and obvious bots everywhere was the tipping point.
I should have done it long before, quitting has been so massively beneficial and I don’t feel I’m missing anything. All real social interaction online these days is in messaging apps. Social media is just a feed of endless slop designed to put you in a zombie like state of scrolling.
Reading the article as a Linux user was almost infuriating. I can't imagine having my workflow, something I've refined for my needs over the years, taken away from me at the wish of a company. Before I switched to Plasma and Wayland I ran XFCE with the exact same config for maybe 15 years, unbothered by updates.
People have been using emacs for how many decades? Or vim and terminal? Linux DEs rarely change entirely without the ability to run old versions, with the notable exception being gnome 3 which is still divisive to this day in large part because of it. And even then it was still possible to keep your workflows with MATE, the continuation of gnome 2. Libre office just recently implemented the ribbon and you can still disable it.
Radical workflow changes with no recourse is the standard in proprietary software, not so much in FOSS.
Jokes aside: yes, I can see how it's technically possible to never experience a workflow change. But also using the same tools at work, your kids school, family you help etc. I just find not very probable.
I think GP was more talking about having your main workflows changed out from underneath you not so much never having to interface with something outside it. I haven’t had the luxury of a non windows workplace but if I worked in a Linux shop I’d be matching my home workflows. I see plenty of anecdotes on here about users who haven’t worked outside of emacs in decades. Not a probable scenario though I’ll agree with that.
> I can't imagine having my workflow, something I've refined for my needs over the years, taken away from me at the wish of a company.
The great Gnome 3 rollout did this for me... to be fair I guess that was a decision of the distributions, but it was in concert with the developers who decided to make a hard changeover, EOL the gnome 2 line there and then, and (deliberately?) scupper the possibility of installing both 2 and 3 on the same system.
Either way it sucked and that pushed me to Xfce, which I still use on linux. But it goes to show it can happen in FOSS.
Yeah, there are precisely two apps that can exchange with Whatsapp: one is still in beta, the other is by invite only, and for "professional networking" or something like that. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46746476
reply