• 17 Posts
  • 89 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: September 13th, 2023

help-circle
  • There is no one reliable distro. Mint, itself is based off Ubuntu and also releases LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition).

    If reliablility is measured in terms of how stable a distro is, then likely Debian with it’s conservative approach to packaging updates comes to mind (No wonder large number of distros are based off Debian only).

    I would even argue as long as someone isn’t messing with a niche distro such as KDE Neon( meant to showcase KDE packages) or Linuxfx (or whatever it has renamed itself to, one of the few shady ones IMO ) or Trisquel OS (a GNU certified distro where running into dependency hell isn’t new); it will suit user’s case.

    Debian, Slackware, Void, Zorin, even rolling release like Arch (basically any one that meets the user’s use case is reliable)




  • Amongst the apps mentioned as bloated on Windows were Teams, Discord (major offender) and WhatsApp. The latter is a curious case because a Universal Windows app existed (now being deprecated I guess?) that was more memory efficient than the Web wrapper.

    And in case, someone in interested there is a terminal client for WhatsApp (and Telegram) called nchat. Sure, it is not at feature parity with web client (images is a big problem, for obvious reasons) but the simple fact that a third party client taking so little resources exists is a damning indictment of Meta. It shows that resource efficient clients are possible (provided the parent company junks the metaverse).











  • The web is designed for humans to use, so if Atlas can monitor us - how we book train tickets for example - it can learn how to better navigate these kinds of processes.

    That is called malware. Or at the very least, Open AI should be paying the users for basically getting their browsing data for free, not other way around.

    Second, I object to it being called a Google killer in the article. It is based on Chromium whose future is basically in Google’s hands right now for all Intents and purposes. The days of multiple Web browsers are gone. We have the same thing in new clothing. Opera ditched it’s rendering engine for Chromium, MS ditched Trident for Chromium.

    Currently, there are basically only three real browser engines : Chromium, Gecko which powers Firefox Derivatives and Safari(Blinkit? I am not sure of its exact name). Even if Open AI’s new browser (or Perplexity 's for that matter) takes market by storm, they will remain dependent on Google because the underlying code is. They can’t be truly independent unless they have their separate engine. And if the new Ladybird project shows one thing, it is that shipping a new browser might be easy, but a new rendering engine is very tough.


  • Of course, it made a mockery of everything you know of Windows because it’s not like Windows. Neither is it meant to be used like one nor is it heading in that direction (not to mention that Windows is one monotonous thing, like if you know your hands across one install of Windows, you know it all. The same is not true about Linux. A Void Linux user might still not be as adept at a Gentoo install).

    You are contradicting yourself. First you call it magic and then you call it not very deep. If it’s the latter, why do so many production servers run on Linux?

    Some Linux distros like Debian have a fantastic reputation for stability. Sure, bugs still exist. I personally struggle with a distro agnostic bug that breaks workflows often on my current setup. But things have come a long way. And it’s better than Windows non customizable privacy invading approach any day.

    The twin advantages Windows has is wrt games (though that is slowly being covered) and more importantly, specialized software. I know folks IRL who have to use Windows just because their work requires it.



  • Google is pushing towards WFF (Watch Face Format) styles. The new Wear OS 5 watches, IIRC, (not the upgraded ones) didn’t even support Facer or Watchmaker initially.

    The Watch faces published on Play Store, majority of them, are now in WFF format which translates to improved battery life as well.






  • I hate the official YouTube app. I have YouTube Premium but that’s because I use YT Music mostly (have been using on and off since GPM days). But shorts shoved in your face, subscription page jumbled with updates, comments and videos (I only want videos) ; no way to choose a system wide video quality (app only has High or Data Saver option; one needs to manually toggle for each video ; contrary, NewPipe has this basic feature).

    There is also the donate button on multiple YouTube videos (Atleast give me the option to remove/customize that button/other buttons on that ribbon). Why are paying users subject to worse UI?

    Oh, and these people throttle stuff on Firefox and have probably been doing since times immemorial.

    I have been wondering if I should let YT Premium lapse and not renew it. I tried Spotify Premium once and whilst it’s 3rd party support is phenomenal, it has its own bugs (and they are similarly slow despite their forums being full with bug reports as well). Almost like I should hoard my own music from ahem, sources.