Silly goober :3

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: October 30th, 2023

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  • I have absolutely no faith in this project whatsoever, there is a 99% chance itll fail like all Linux phones and tbh they all deserve to. Not a single mobile Linux OEM has even the slightest idea what the average person wants, hell im a highly technical Linux enthusiast and it doesn’t even do what I want. The average person wants:

    1. Long battery life
    2. Fast charging
    3. A good screen
    4. Decent performance
    5. A good camera
    6. Software good enough to tie everything together in a cohesive experience (this one especially they lack in)

    Meanwhile more technical people (such as myself) want:

    1. Good security (both hardware level security and software level security)
    2. A relockable bootloader (with it being locked from shipping)
    3. Extended software support (including firmware and microcode updates)
    4. The ability to seamlessly work on multiple different sim networks
    5. Longevity (I should not need to get a new one once every three years)
    6. Reparability
    7. Software that can accommodate technical usecases without falling apart

    Meanwhile Linux phones:

    1. Can be a portable programming station (why??? No genuenly why would anyone want to do this??? Just get a cheap Thinkpad)
    2. Can run desktop software (ok thats neat I guess but not neat when all the software is optimized for desktops, the downsides to this completely overshadow any tiny benefit this may provide)
    3. Have support for multiple mobile Linux distros (congratulations, you have multiple choices and they all suck)
    4. Have support multiple WMs/DEs (and they’re all either under maintained, not maintained at all, or they just suck)
    5. Have extensive software customization (its a phone, why on earth would I want that???)
    6. Are cheap (sometimes, also I can just get a cheap used Google Pixel 7)
    7. Run faster (except not when you take into account the significantly worse hardware)











  • It was explicitly specified that no tinkering should be required, also even if you custom build a PC you wont have several advantages of just going with system76. For example the mini PC uses their fork of coreboot and intigrates with Pop_OS, meanwhile on other systems you would need to manually install coreboot (if its even supported) and bios updates are still an absolute mess (even if you dont care about the privacy benefits of coreboot the extremely fast start up speed alone makes it valuable).





  • No, Richard, it’s ‘Linux’, not ‘GNU/Linux’. The most important contributions that the FSF made to Linux were the creation of the GPL and the GCC compiler. Those are fine and inspired products. GCC is a monumental achievement and has earned you, RMS, and the Free Software Foundation countless kudos and much appreciation.

    Following are some reasons for you to mull over, including some already answered in your FAQ.

    One guy, Linus Torvalds, used GCC to make his operating system (yes, Linux is an OS – more on this later). He named it ‘Linux’ with a little help from his friends. Why doesn’t he call it GNU/Linux? Because he wrote it, with more help from his friends, not you. You named your stuff, I named my stuff – including the software I wrote using GCC – and Linus named his stuff. The proper name is Linux because Linus Torvalds says so. Linus has spoken. Accept his authority. To do otherwise is to become a nag. You don’t want to be known as a nag, do you?

    (An operating system) != (a distribution). Linux is an operating system. By my definition, an operating system is that software which provides and limits access to hardware resources on a computer. That definition applies whereever you see Linux in use. However, Linux is usually distributed with a collection of utilities and applications to make it easily configurable as a desktop system, a server, a development box, or a graphics workstation, or whatever the user needs. In such a configuration, we have a Linux (based) distribution. Therein lies your strongest argument for the unwieldy title ‘GNU/Linux’ (when said bundled software is largely from the FSF). Go bug the distribution makers on that one. Take your beef to Red Hat, Mandrake, and Slackware. At least there you have an argument. Linux alone is an operating system that can be used in various applications without any GNU software whatsoever. Embedded applications come to mind as an obvious example.

    Next, even if we limit the GNU/Linux title to the GNU-based Linux distributions, we run into another obvious problem. XFree86 may well be more important to a particular Linux installation than the sum of all the GNU contributions. More properly, shouldn’t the distribution be called XFree86/Linux? Or, at a minimum, XFree86/GNU/Linux? Of course, it would be rather arbitrary to draw the line there when many other fine contributions go unlisted. Yes, I know you’ve heard this one before. Get used to it. You’ll keep hearing it until you can cleanly counter it.

    You seem to like the lines-of-code metric. There are many lines of GNU code in a typical Linux distribution. You seem to suggest that (more LOC) == (more important). However, I submit to you that raw LOC numbers do not directly correlate with importance. I would suggest that clock cycles spent on code is a better metric. For example, if my system spends 90% of its time executing XFree86 code, XFree86 is probably the single most important collection of code on my system. Even if I loaded ten times as many lines of useless bloatware on my system and I never excuted that bloatware, it certainly isn’t more important code than XFree86. Obviously, this metric isn’t perfect either, but LOC really, really sucks. Please refrain from using it ever again in supporting any argument.

    Last, I’d like to point out that we Linux and GNU users shouldn’t be fighting among ourselves over naming other people’s software. But what the heck, I’m in a bad mood now. I think I’m feeling sufficiently obnoxious to make the point that GCC is so very famous and, yes, so very useful only because Linux was developed. In a show of proper respect and gratitude, shouldn’t you and everyone refer to GCC as ‘the Linux compiler’? Or at least, ‘Linux GCC’? Seriously, where would your masterpiece be without Linux? Languishing with the HURD?

    If there is a moral buried in this rant, maybe it is this:

    Be grateful for your abilities and your incredible success and your considerable fame. Continue to use that success and fame for good, not evil. Also, be especially grateful for Linux’ huge contribution to that success. You, RMS, the Free Software Foundation, and GNU software have reached their current high profiles largely on the back of Linux. You have changed the world. Now, go forth and don’t be a nag.

    Thanks for listening.

    • Linus Torvalds

  • My primary issue with cosmic is the seeming lack of customizability. On Hyprland I was able to change all the keybindings to the i3 shortcuts (thats what I personally prefer). My full list of problems are:

    1. High resource usage: I get its a full DE but as a WM user it would be nice to disable extra features I dont like
    2. Documentation: I get its still in alpha but morr documentation would be nice
    3. Extension support: Since its a full DE I thought it would have the advantage of supporting extensions, I guess apparently not
    4. Themeing: Im not sure how themeable it is, granted on Hyprland I used a dotfiles from github but it seems limited (only color schemes).

    Granted what System76 is doing with Cosmic is absolutely incredible and I think one day it can be as pretty (perhaps even more) than Hyprland, my problem is thats far ahead in the future when right now I can use Hyprland and right now it looks pretty.