this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2024
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When software changes in a way the user dislikes there's often no choice but to put up with it or stop using it, because it's proprietary. I think this could be fixed if people were to adopt the value of free software and began to ditch proprietary software.
It starts small.
Use FOSS. If you have a few spare ducats, throw it the way of the developers who make the software you use.
Encourage the use of FOSS at your work. Be a gentle evangelist for FOSS when it is appropriate and useful.
Everyone doesn't have to use Arch and hand code their own kernels to win. All that has to happen is for Microsoft and Apple to realize that their current superiority is under siege and that if they do not comply with the desires of their users they will eventually be ousted.
Hopefully more people will start to use Linux. When there are more Linux users than Apple users that will be a good start, and with all of the enshittification Microsoft is adding to their flagship os, it has never been easier or more convenient to try a Linux.
If you would like to show people a great and easy way to try out some free and open source software on windows, I highly recommend ruckzuck.
https://ruckzuck.tools
It's an all-in-one downloadable portable that lets you browse through a large variety of the various FOSS programs that are available for Windows, conveniently sorted into their general use purpose and then with a quick easy blurb explaining what the software does and allowing you to install it with a couple of clicks.
Further, if you already have some of this software installed, it will scan your system and if there is an update available it allows you to apply all of the updates with a single click.
It has become my go-to software for setting up new computers, and I cannot recommend it enough.
Why do people write as if using Arch were hard. It's just messy. Stuff breaks and it's considered normal.
LFS maybe.
Just because it seems daunting, that's all. I've done the arch thing, it was fun, somewhat laborious though.
I vastly prefer Mint or Debian so far.
I'm using Linux and other Unix-like systems for 12 years, and at this point I suspect I'd be fine with something like Debian too, if the hardware is not too new.
Slackware was always the coziest of Linux, but its kind of stability causes security issues in the modern world. And if you think Arch is laborious, while it has package management with dependency resolution, AUR and so on, then Slackware is even more of that. And I'd need multilib for Wine, which takes some manual actions and version tracking.
Using Void now, it works, but I guess some change wouldn't be bad. If I need pkgsrc, it works on any distribution.
There's nothing wrong with proprietary software as long as it's respects user's privacy and doesn't do crazy licensing stuff.
It is very difficult to tell if a program is respecting user's privacy without the source code to verify what it's actually doing. When you can't see or change what it does then the developer is the one in control of the computing, and even a good intentioned dev will have to resist the temptation to gain at the user's expense.
VSCode is open source and yet Microsoft still pushes telemetry crap into it.
One advantage of FOSS is that you can fork it! VSCodium (presumably, I never really checked) takes all of the crapware out of VSCode.
Being open source doesn't prevent the software being made with features one may dislike. It does mean you can actually investigate what data is being collected and decide if it shouldn't be doing that.
When I have installed Windows I've clicked "no" many questions asking if I was X feature on, and I could only hope it was respecting my wishes. It was probably still collecting data it didn't even ask me if I could turn off.