The fedi experience

@ShadowInTheVoid @babe I was recently able to convince a friend to try Linux Cinnamon Mint by basically saying that, after she had about reached a breaking point with Microsoft updates messing with her computer working right, especially after I said that when I first switched to Linux that I kept dual booting for a few weeks and then just stopped booting into Windows and I don’t miss it

@MontgomeryGator @babe That sounds about right.

A problem for FOSS development is a similar hollowing out of the middle: as I recall in the 90s, a lot of software was developed and somewhat supported by universities and government research bodies, with limited but not insignificant resources. Now, FOSS is dominated by the same rapacious corps we complain about all the time, or else by harried volunteers, often in their downtime from working for those corps.

@babe

Some people just want to travel by plane or to use their SUV...

@TheGreatLlama

The point is that it can bettered.
But that can happen only if enough people snap out of magical thinking and sense of entitlement.

@babe

@babe every average https://replyguy.social/ user

@MontgomeryGator @babe Yup, this. A big bunch of years ago when my StinkPad all but quit working, I was persuaded to try Linux. Mandrake, it was. Horrible experience: read the FAQs, find the RPMs, try the things, say the prayers, still be stuck. Post a cogent, succinct request for help in the right sections of the relevant forums, get nothing but "LOL, if that's the kind of question you have to ask, just go back to your Windoze crib, luser" types of replies.

All these years later, I've still not tried Linux again. MacOS is enshittifying out loud, and there's no shortage of smug-forming emissions in the Applesphere, but most stuff still mostly works most of the time, and helpful help is mostly available.

@babe Linux moment.

@babe me delicately crafting posts about technical issues like trying to coax a coherent answer out of a chatbot with the perfect prompt, except that I need to specify exactly what information I *don't* want.

@tess me trying to get help with a minor technical issue and ending up with a 4 toot thread because of trying to head off all the inevitable replies

@babe the struggle is real

@babe @catsalad It can be a lot some days.

@babe Make the change, it's easy, all it takes is an enormous amount of work

@babe the problem is governments not giving a fuck about OUR data and sending it to a #Microsoft's 365 #Cloud house feces

@babe—and also this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfOREULEqRU

@babe Spoiler: the guy believes he’s helping .

I sometimes wish there would be a button that hides answers that start with a variant of „Not an answer to the question you asked, but …“

@feike I understand the issues around it.

@babe @jack_daniel The guy with the trumpet has escaped the meme and is in the replies.

@babe i've started responding "sorry, I don't use Mastodon"

@babe Honestly, that meme works in reverse, too. I'm the only one on my team who runs Linux on all his machines, and every single time I have some minor hardware or software issue, someone immediately goes "It's because you're using that hobby OS, grow up and use Windows like an adult, why can't you just be normal, what even is a mastodon"

@babe I dont see the problem here!


*cries in broken Linux driver*