speedie-page/articles/Normies are destroying GNU+Linux.md

# Normies are destroying GNU+Linux

2023-03-09

So, because this blog post marks blog post number 50, and because the first
blog post is 1 year old today, I thought to celebrate I'd do a rewrite of
my first blog post, which still holds true, actually more so than when I
intially wrote it. Granted, the original blog post is terrible, it was
fueled out of frustration and nothing more so let's give the topic the
chance it deserves.

As well all know, GNU/Linux is an operating system and it has always been
the outcast, it has always been less popular than other operating
systems like Windows and macOS. Out of the outcast operating systems like
BSD, Haiku and more however, it's pretty popular and it's growing in
popularity. While this may seem like a good thing at first, when you
actually dig deeper into what that means for GNU/Linux, you'll find many
problems and I want to talk about those today.
So let's go back into the early days. Linus Torvalds developed the Linux
kernel, which was used in combination with the GNU project. This means
we now have a completely free software operating system. Great, now we
don't have to use spyware nonfree software that doesn't respect your
freedom anymore and everything is good for the small userbase.
Previously GNU/Linux followed the UNIX philosophy rather closely, which
is what made it so great. Of course there were exceptions to this rule,
such as X11 (and today Wayland), however most software was minimal,
and closely followed the UNIX philosophy like it was a religion,
as that was expected out of software.

As GNU/Linux got more mainstream and normies got their hands on it,
this freedom, this minimalism, all this stuff that made GNU/Linux so
great started to disappear. When normies found this free operating system,
naturally being normies they didn't want to actually learn anything about
minimalism and free software, and certainly didn't want to enjoy any of
the perks of it. Instead of that, they initially whined and complained
about how it was different from what they're used to. And we, members
of the GNU/Linux community in response did everything in our power to
make the "Year of the GNU/Linux desktop" happen. Except..

We didn't. In response to normies complaining, we as a community at large
started developing garbage, bloated software that throws everything that makes
GNU/Linux and UNIX in general so great in the trash. We're no longer
using text streams, we're no longer writing quality software with
quality code, instead we're focusing on developing libraries on top of
libraries that just add bloat to a project and create huge basically
packages of software in an effort to please normies who refuse to
appreciate the beauty of UNIX-like operating systems and just wanted to
stick to what they're familiar with.

Here's the thing, If you're this kind of person who doesn't want
to learn GNU/Linux, you don't want to learn about UNIX-like
operating systems and you don't want to spend any time out of your day
learning this stuff then why even bother using a new operating system
in the first place? At that point, you might as well stick with Windows
or macOS. But alright, fine. We can still have *our* section of the
GNU/Linux community where traditional UNIX/Minimalist views are
still appreciated, right? Well, no because eventually programmers
start writing software which of course depends on all this normie
software which is absolutely awful and now it becomes almost
impossible to have a functioning system on GNU/Linux without
this garbage software.

I haven't given any examples yet, but in my first version of this
blog post I referred to Snaps, AppImages and Flatpaks, and while those
do still meet the criteria here (although not in the present),
I want to give some more examples which might make more sense.
First, systemd. systemd is a collection of tools for GNU/Linux,
and although many people hate systemd because it is "an init system",
it is really a suite of tools. Therefore calling it bloated is not
justified. However what is justified is valid criticism towards it.
systemd provides a tool named "logind". So many programs depend
on this, it is pretty much impossible to have a modern GNU/Linux
system without this program installed on your computer. Now,
that should be taken with a grain of salt because there
are many different implementations of this tool, and those of
you that use Gentoo may be familiar with one implementation
called elogind. Still, I think this is an excellent example of
dependencies that are used so much you cannot escape them.

But there are so many programs like these that we can't really
escape, and the cause of these programs existing is usually
the same. Normies want "easy" software, so in response we write
terrible software which a normie will think is easy because
Windows is terrible. However the worst of it came around the
time Linus Tech Tips and all these other well known technology
"entertainment" channels started covering GNU/Linux and giving
it attention. When that happened and Windows/Mac users gave
this OS a proper chance, developers around here scrambled to
write as much normieware as possible to please these new users
in the hopes of converting them into GNU/Linux users. Of course
this failed, and just resulted in more terrible software.

I call this the "gaming wave", because suddenly all these gamers
(often with NVIDIA graphics cards) came over here, because
that's what Linus Tech Tips' fanbase is and wanted to play
games. Of course, this failed because despite the effort from
the people who play games around here, most GNU/Linux users
don't really play games. In fact I barely play games myself
anymore. I have nothing against people who play games, but
the people who play games on GNU/Linux certainly have some
blame to take here.

Lastly, before I end off this blog post I want to mention
a few things regarding Wayland. In short, I'm definitely
against it and that's for a few reasons. Wayland brings
a lot of good things to the table, such as a cleaner
codebase, less screen tearing, perhaps HDR support
in the future, and so on and all that is fine by me.
No complains there. Where the problem starts to show
however is from a developer perspective. Yes, the
Wayland display protocol *is* more minimal than X11
(that's not really an achievement) but a lot of that is
because the Wayland mess has been moved over to the
compositor forcing any developers to write thousands of
lines of just absolute junk. This is absolutely terrible,
and until the developers of Wayland change direction
(highly doubt they will), I'm sticking with X11 until
it's no longer feasible to do so.

Either way, that's what I wanted to say, stop using
all of this stupid software whenever possible, and
become a based GNU/Linux minimalist. I plan on getting
a page up on replacements for stupid software which
will kind of act as a guide on how to get into GNU/Linux
minimalism for those of you that fell for this stupid
software. If you have any questions or thoughts,
feel free to send me an email.. and have
a good rest of your day.