this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
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libre
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Welcome to libre
A comm dedicated to the fight for free software with an anti-capitalist perspective.
The struggle for libre computing cannot be disentangled from other forms of socialist reform. One must be willing to reject proprietary software as fiercely as they would reject capitalism. Luckily, we are not alone.
Resources
- Free Software, Free Society provides an excellent primer in the origins and theory around free software and the GNU Project, the pioneers of the Free Software Movement.
- Switch to GNU/Linux! If you're still using Windows in
$CURRENT_YEAR, flock to Linux Mint!; Apple Silicon users will want to check out Asahi Linux.
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- Be on topic: Posts should be about free software and other hacktivst struggles. Topics about general tech news should be in the technology comm or programming comm. That doesn't mean all posts have to be serious though, memes are welcome!
- Avoid using misleading terms/speading misinformation: Here's a great article about what those words are. In short, try to avoid parroting common Techbro lingo and topics.
- Avoid being confrontational: People are in different stages of liberating their computing, focus on informing rather than accusing. Debatebro nonsense is not tolerated.
- All site-wide rules still apply
Artwork
- Xenia was meant to be an alternative to Tux and was created (licensed under CC0) by Alan Mackey in 1996.
- Comm icon (of Xenia the Linux mascot) was originally created by @ioletsgo
- Comm banner is a close up of "Dorlotons Degooglisons" by David Revoy (CC-BY 4.0) for Framasoft
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
Link to previous megathread:
Microsoft Corp. v. Lindows [dot] com, Inc
- (wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Lindows.com,_Inc.
- (blog): https://dmitr.dev/blog/tech/the-history-of-lindows-from-controversy-to-rebranding/
- (YouTube, channel Action Retro): https://youtu.be/SWmvtdyXlTA
TL;DR
A Linux distribution based in San Diego, California by the name of Lindows (2001) was sued by Micro$oft for infringing on their trademark name. Lindows was a distribution of GNU/Linux designed to run programs meant for Windows as well as programs compiled for Linux. Fun fact, it was founded by the guy who used to run mp3 dot com (Michael Robertson ).
One of the innovations that Lindows made was being sold with computers (you could find these for just under $200 in Walmart), it also boasted the CNR (Click N' Run) application which allowed users to install programs just with a single click.
Of course, since Lindows was threatening the bruised egos of Microsoft, they were sued for trademark infringement. However, in a rare turn of events, a judge ruled that the term "Windows" was used to describe graphical interfaces before the Windows product existed. Windows, now realizing they could be in deep shit if "Windows" itself was determined to be a generic term and not a trademark, quickly backed away from bullying the small company and settled in 2004 for nearly 20 million dollars (now around 33 million today).
Lindows later rebranded as linspire but quickly faded into the background as Microsoft and Apple quickly dominated the market and enveloped it into their sphere of influence. Lindows' mission of running Windows software and catering to these users was later taken up by Valve Inc. who funded the development of Vulkan and DXVK et. al to create Proton, which now boasts to run over 10,000 games made specifically for Windows and powers the Steam Deck, a commercially available Linux device nearly made up of entirely libre software (minus steam).
Megathread
Post nerd in the chat. 
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Watching windows develop has been astounding over the past decade.
There were already good tools built in but so much of the refactoring and adoption of practices and tools from other environments makes me want to use it.
It’s like a car with everything I want except it has a cvt.
That's funny because all I want to do is get off windows. In terms of software deployment and management alone, the Linux environment just feels more efficient. I know that you can get into alternative package management hell with things like Snap that people seem to debate about endlessly. Or that different distros will at times use different package managers, be it yum or pacman or apt. On Windows though, there is a whole graveyard of package managers sitting under Winget, and others still being utilized like Chocolatey.
At least Winget is authoritative at this point because it's operated by Microsoft and comes preinstalled on Win10. For the first time in my life, I was able to install about 30 different peaces of software on my new Win laptop with a single one-line command. Fired it off, it all installed with zero human interaction. Never had to visit a website or download a file. All of them can be updated via a single command.
There is a whole world of business software out there that tries to fill the gap for software management on Windows. Things like PDQ Inventory \ Deploy, LanSweeper, Ninite, etc. Their only goal, to provide an "easier" means of simply distributing software to your fleet of computers without intervention and provide regular updates to that software.
That's just software management. That doesn't even get on the topic of configuration management. Creating a service on Linux is simply a matter of knowing the correct place to put a text file, and the syntax required. Making a configuration change is a matter of, again, editing more text files. Windows has the registry which is cryptic and strange, services are not easily created, scheduled tasks are incredibly tedious to configure. Sure, everything has a nice GUI, but it's definitely at the cost of efficient configuration. If you need to get into more complex configuration management across a fleet of computers, you need a windows' domain server, enterprise licensing, and you then have to learn Group Policy and all its idiosyncrasies.
I often wonder what it would be like to manage a fleet of Linux based desktop PCs that'd be used by end users. I imagine comes with its own nightmares, many of which stem from the fact that everyone is so used to Windows.
Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time.
It’s funny, the thing that makes windows “easy” to use for big shops is the domain server and group policy. You start from the top and push everything down to client devices.
Managing a Linux shop without the redhat tools is absolute hell. A decade and a half ago the usual response to a Linux user was “you’re on your own and it’s your responsibility if a software problem impacts your productivity”.
Of course when I wax rhapsodic about how nice windows has become over the past years it’s because the ideas and capabilities of those tools for managing hundreds of users have trickled down to the individual user.
What sucks is that the user experience of windows has shifted towards that of tablets. So you get a powerful enterprise backend with key features removed and the interface of a cell phone.
Getting old ftw.