129 lines
6.9 KiB
Markdown
129 lines
6.9 KiB
Markdown
# Normies are destroying GNU/Linux
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2023-03-09
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So, because this blog post marks blog post number 50, and because the first
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blog post is 1 year old today, I thought to celebrate I'd do a rewrite of
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my first blog post, which still holds true, actually more so than when I
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intially wrote it. Granted, the original blog post is terrible, it was
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fueled out of frustration and nothing more so let's give the topic the
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chance it deserves.
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As well all know, GNU/Linux is an operating system and it has always been
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the outcast, it has always been less popular than other operating
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systems like Windows and macOS. Out of the outcast operating systems like
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BSD, Haiku and more however, it's pretty popular and it's growing in
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popularity. While this may seem like a good thing at first, when you
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actually dig deeper into what that means for GNU/Linux, you'll find many
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problems and I want to talk about those today.
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So let's go back into the early days. Linus Torvalds developed the Linux
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kernel, which was used in combination with the GNU project. This means
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we now have a completely free software operating system. Great, now we
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don't have to use spyware nonfree software that doesn't respect your
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freedom anymore and everything is good for the small userbase.
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Previously GNU/Linux followed the UNIX philosophy rather closely, which
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is what made it so great. Of course there were exceptions to this rule,
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such as X11 (and today Wayland), however most software was minimal,
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and closely followed the UNIX philosophy like it was a religion,
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as that was expected out of software.
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As GNU/Linux got more mainstream and normies got their hands on it,
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this freedom, this minimalism, all this stuff that made GNU/Linux so
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great started to disappear. When normies found this free operating system,
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naturally being normies they didn't want to actually learn anything about
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minimalism and free software, and certainly didn't want to enjoy any of
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the perks of it. Instead of that, they initially whined and complained
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about how it was different from what they're used to. And we, members
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of the GNU/Linux community in response did everything in our power to
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make the "Year of the GNU/Linux desktop" happen. Except..
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We didn't. In response to normies complaining, we as a community at large
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started developing garbage, bloated software that throws everything that makes
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GNU/Linux and UNIX in general so great in the trash. We're no longer
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using text streams, we're no longer writing quality software with
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quality code, instead we're focusing on developing libraries on top of
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libraries that just add bloat to a project and create huge basically
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packages of software in an effort to please normies who refuse to
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appreciate the beauty of UNIX-like operating systems and just wanted to
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stick to what they're familiar with.
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Here's the thing, If you're this kind of person who doesn't want
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to learn GNU/Linux, you don't want to learn about UNIX-like
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operating systems and you don't want to spend any time out of your day
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learning this stuff then why even bother using a new operating system
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in the first place? At that point, you might as well stick with Windows
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or macOS. But alright, fine. We can still have *our* section of the
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GNU/Linux community where traditional UNIX/Minimalist views are
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still appreciated, right? Well, no because eventually programmers
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start writing software which of course depends on all this normie
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software which is absolutely awful and now it becomes almost
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impossible to have a functioning system on GNU/Linux without
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this garbage software.
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I haven't given any examples yet, but in my first version of this
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blog post I referred to Snaps, AppImages and Flatpaks, and while those
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do still meet the criteria here (although not in the present),
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I want to give some more examples which might make more sense.
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First, systemd. systemd is a collection of tools for GNU/Linux,
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and although many people hate systemd because it is "an init system",
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it is really a suite of tools. Therefore calling it bloated is not
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justified. However what is justified is valid criticism towards it.
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systemd provides a tool named "logind". So many programs depend
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on this, it is pretty much impossible to have a modern GNU/Linux
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system without this program installed on your computer. Now,
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that should be taken with a grain of salt because there
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are many different implementations of this tool, and those of
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you that use Gentoo may be familiar with one implementation
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called elogind. Still, I think this is an excellent example of
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dependencies that are used so much you cannot escape them.
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But there are so many programs like these that we can't really
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escape, and the cause of these programs existing is usually
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the same. Normies want "easy" software, so in response we write
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terrible software which a normie will think is easy because
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Windows is terrible. However the worst of it came around the
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time Linus Tech Tips and all these other well known technology
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"entertainment" channels started covering GNU/Linux and giving
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it attention. When that happened and Windows/Mac users gave
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this OS a proper chance, developers around here scrambled to
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write as much normieware as possible to please these new users
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in the hopes of converting them into GNU/Linux users. Of course
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this failed, and just resulted in more terrible software.
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I call this the "gaming wave", because suddenly all these gamers
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(often with NVIDIA graphics cards) came over here, because
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that's what Linus Tech Tips' fanbase is and wanted to play
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games. Of course, this failed because despite the effort from
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the people who play games around here, most GNU/Linux users
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don't really play games. In fact I barely play games myself
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anymore. I have nothing against people who play games, but
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the people who play games on GNU/Linux certainly have some
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blame to take here.
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Lastly, before I end off this blog post I want to mention
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a few things regarding Wayland. In short, I'm definitely
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against it and that's for a few reasons. Wayland brings
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a lot of good things to the table, such as a cleaner
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codebase, less screen tearing, perhaps HDR support
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in the future, and so on and all that is fine by me.
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No complains there. Where the problem starts to show
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however is from a developer perspective. Yes, the
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Wayland display protocol *is* more minimal than X11
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(that's not really an achievement) but a lot of that is
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because the Wayland mess has been moved over to the
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compositor forcing any developers to write thousands of
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lines of just absolute junk. This is absolutely terrible,
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and until the developers of Wayland change direction
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(highly doubt they will), I'm sticking with X11 until
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it's no longer feasible to do so.
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Either way, that's what I wanted to say, stop using
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all of this stupid software whenever possible, and
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become a based GNU/Linux minimalist. I plan on getting
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a page up on replacements for stupid software which
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will kind of act as a guide on how to get into GNU/Linux
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minimalism for those of you that fell for this stupid
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software. If you have any questions or thoughts,
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feel free to send me an email.. and have
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a good rest of your day.
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