Sometimes I think “if debian had a flashy website and a few tweaks for user friendliness, then it would be just as attractive as linux mint or ubuntu for new users”, and other times I think “isn’t this exactly what most debian based distros are already?” Would there be a benefit if those projects worked under the debian name, something like debian workstation pure blend, or debian corporate pure blend? I don’t know.

Expanding on this, we could make it so that root must use ed(1) to edit files?

For JavaFX I ended up putting both JDK and JavaFX in my home dir and pointed vscodium to the right paths, I could get programs to compile but for some reason it would not let me open windows from inside, complaining that DISPLAY was not set or available iirc, even though I did set the env variable inside. Either way, I’m not ready for this container work-flow. Though I suspect that I could get used to better practices. Do you install git and your editor of choice separately in all dev containers? Like, how much of the tooling should be inside or on host?

About a year ago I started experimenting with the whole container-based workflow thing. I don’t know how much time I’ve spent on setting up various programming environments, and there’s always hurdles like getting a flatpak editor have access to java and actually be able to run javafx programs. And with distroboxes, what if my code needs access to a database that is started in a docker container on the host system, do I install docker inside the distrobox? I’ve had so many configuration issues. Every time I try I come back to debian stable and it feels like home.

I like the debian way with a separate repo for the non-free things needed for the hardware to function, so it’s not all or nothing. I want my wifi to work, but beyond things like that I only want free software.

I like it this way. When you say old, I hear “the environment is predictable”. What works today won’t break in a week because an update changed functionality of something. As long as I have hardware support, I don’t need the latest packages for what I do.

Ugh, I’ve been down the same rabbit hole, but gave up and just downloaded the jdk to my home directory and set the java path in vscodium to point to it. Same with maven.

Good points. I’ll have to ponder this for a while.

Dilemma: Fedora has introduced and worked on a lot of things that make “Year of Linux on the Desktop” more likely. Even if UNIX purists disagree with the direction, Fedora is what Ubuntu used to be back in the day. Linux for humans.

At the same time, it’s possible due to corporate backing. American corporate backing even. A part of me thinks that if we can’t get there as a community without corporate influence, then it’s all for nothing. I want the community model to not just be an ethical alternative, but that this model of cooperation also produces the best results.

(PS. I’m open for having my view changed, maybe I’m thinking about this the wrong way.)

Good. To be honest I sometimes copy/paste too, but there is a possible trick to hide characters in the copied text with an automatic return at the end so when you paste you immediately run something you don’t intended. If I copy from some random shady blog I’d be more careful than from the official docker documentation I guess.

Ken Thompson, who invented UNIX first in assembly and then rewrote it in C, is now running a Debian derived OS as his main daily driver.

You probably did this, but for anyone reading, if you copy commands from the internet, look up what all the commands and flags do to be sure you understand it fully, and then type it in yourself in a terminal instead of copy/paste. If you get an instruction to curl <something> | sh, split it into two steps, curl to get the script to a local file you can read, read it, then run if you know what it does. Do these things for anything you don’t trust 100%.

Something similar happened in Sweden, the politicians said that the EU is forcing Sweden to store data about users. Like, “we don’t want this… but we have no choice!” And then it turned out that what they did was actually against EU laws and Sweden was fined for doing what they did and ordered to stop.

I’m the opposite, I sometimes find :w or :wq written in text files I have edited with non-vi editors.

Found it in the classic The UNIX Programming Environment from 1984:

But then, this is for return, which technically isn’t “enter”, but nowadays they are sort of interpreted the same by programs?

Isn’t ctrl-m the “enter” equivalent?

subreddits are all part of reddit, there’s a top part that can decide over all subreddits and make rules and ban people etc. Lemmy does not have a central point of authority. lemmy.world can only make rules and control lemmy.world, lemm.ee can only decide over lemm.ee. If you want your own rules, you can make your own instance and be as valid and part of lemmy as any other instance. The main point is: there is no level above this that controls all instances. Each instance is the top level of authority for that instance, and anyone can create an instance if they have the knowledge and resources.
Another aspect is that technically you could also interact with mastodon, peertube, etc, but that isn’t seamless and there’s no consensus if it’s even a good idea to pursue that, but it’s technically possible.

I have never owned a computer with more than 8gb RAM.

does that mean that pipes will work backwards?

You know how the ending of LOST or Game of Thrones can bring up feelings in people? That’s how it was for me when Gnome 3 first came out. I had been using Gnome 2 for a few years and had a good workflow, and then suddenly, everything changed. Back then Gnome 3 was buggy and lacked a lot of things, which didn’t help. It also didn’t help that the devs took a “the problem is you” stance to all feedback. That said, I use Gnome now, and I like it, it took some years to mature and become good. But the feeling is still there sometimes.