I should’ve used it sooner rather than last year when they announced AI integration to Windows. Every peripheral I tried is just worked without needing to install drivers, and it works better and faster than on Windows, just like today when I tried to use my brother’s 3D printer expecting disappointment, but no, it just connected and was ready to print right away (I use Ultimaker Cura), whereas on my brother’s Windows computer I have to wait like 20 seconds; sometimes I have to disconnect and reconnect it again for it to see and ready to use. Lastly, for those who are wondering, I use Vanilla Arch (btw), and sorry for bad English.
Every time I see someone write “sorry for my bad english” their writing is several times better than many of the native speakers I interact with on a daily basis.
my ukrainian coworker always apologizes for her bad english. meanwhile she can, and does, write poetry in all four languages she speaks
When I TA-ed, I swear 75% of the non-Americans students wrote almost perfect papers whereas less than 25% of Americans couldn’t even write and less than 5% had comparably good essays. Honestly depressing.
American culture is one of the few I’ve found to be actively “anti-knowledge”. It’s not just their educational system being bad, it’s a genuine cultural tendency of not just dismissing experts, but straight out refusing to learn and snobbing those who do.
We have somewhat similar in Canada, not as dreadful as USA, but still what you would say anti-knowledge.
I saw this in gradeschool, kids actually trying to learn and better themselves were bullies and labeled brown-noser losers.
At University the Uni newspaper editors would dumb down articles purposely, since they thought the general reader may not understand the topic fully ( which defeats the purpose of knowledge articles ).
And random times. Some guy talking about making his tent lines taut, and the rest laughing saying you mean tight. And him saying , no tension on a rope or cable is taut, tight is for fastening bolts, etc. Then everyone being “yeah whatever idiot”
And overseas teenage relatives visiting , knowing 4-5 languages, and saying “Sorry, my English is not the best” and me trying to explain it is way better than half of the coworkers I have who only speak English. And then trying to explain to a teenager that these full grown adults have no desire to learn correct terms, grammar, spelling or punctuation.
Trying to read my wife’s family’s facebook posts is like a course in stroke cryptography.
Anti-intellectualism seems to be resurgent in recent years. Its the worst I’ve seen since the Bush 2 era, and it’s all pevasive.
When I worked at a bank we had a loan officer who wrote in such broken English that the email filter actually started flagging and blocking his outbound emails as a suspected compromise. Worst part is he was handling multimillion dollar agribusiness loans. Second worst part is he’s as white American as they come, having had family farming not 20 miles away for generations, so it’s not even like he can claim a non-local dialect or second language challenges
Haha thanks, My English is self thought, so maybe that’s why I’m still afraid of making mistakes (also relied on keyboard auto correct)
*taught :-) No worries, your intent is coming across clearly.
You went straight from windows to vanilla arch ?
Quite impressive
Haha thanks but it’s not actually my first distro, I’m distro hopping on my first week of switching to Linux, my first ever distro is EndeavourOS>Nobara>Fedora>OpenSUSE>Vanilla Arch
That’s a good distrohop pipeline
I remember the USAF handing me an M16 at 18 years old where all I’ve ever handled before that was even close was the NES zapper.
Vanilla arch is nothing like the manually installed arch of old. It’s as easy to install and use as any other distro. I started with arch too, and my now permanent distro is arch based
Welcome!
For a while now Linux has been better at most personal computing things except gaming. And for server uses an even longer time.
There are some specific hardware/software situations where you’ll need Windows but it’s unlikely to happen at home. Unless you have very peculiar hobbies.
Unless you have very peculiar hobbies.
Or you take your photography a bit too seriously! Good noise reduction software is next to impossible to do on Linux. It’s the only reason I have a windows box in my house
Just a thought… Don’t use AI noise reduction! I’ve seen the “magic” they produce and am not impressed. I take pride in capturing the image, not relying on software to recreate it the way I wish it had been shot (I recognize this is a bit hypocritical given that I do use noise reduction in Darktable).
Additionally, I stopped caring about (luminance) noise a long while ago, now, and am perfectly happy with the results I get out of Darktable. In fact, much like film grain, I find modern luminance noise quite pleasing, especially on smaller sensors, and it can add texture and feeling to your image. Still, my default style includes the fantastic, camera model specific, noise reduction profiles by default, which effectively removes color noise and brings luminance noise down to appropriate levels.
The rise in clinical photography and “AI” tools has only given me a stronger drive to be creative and embrace the flaws of my camera and my tools. Call me a romantic, but I want people to know my photos were taken and created by a human, not a machine.
Ok, getting off the soapbox, now xD
I take pride in capturing the image, not relying on software to recreate it the way I wish it had been shot
Unless you’re shooting flat JPGs with no photo modes enabled, and not doing any post processing, then you’re not getting that result. And even if you do that, two cameras shooting the same scene will produce different images, because the process of converting RAW sensor data to the reduced colour palette and bit depth of a JPG image, involves an algorithm deciding how best to recreate (not capture) what you saw with your eye, and no two cameras do it the same way, and neither produce a “true” capture of what you saw.
Ultimately, it’s a meaningless distinction. My camera does in body image compositing, using firmware to stack multiple frames in to a single exposure, giving you light trails, without overexposed static light sources. It uses AI subject recognition to drive its auto focus. It has a 120frame buffer than records records directly to the buffer whilst holding the shutter button half down, and then writes them all to the card when you press, effectively letting you capture moments that you would normally have missed, because human reflexes are imperfect. And the RAW software that comes with the camera literally uses AI noise reduction.
So for me to draw the line and say that AI driven noise reduction (non generative AI at that) is a problem would be a bit hypocritical of me.
As it is, the camera hardware itself does solid noise reduction on the JPGs it produces (using algorithms built in to the firmware) giving really nice results even at high ISOs. But the only way to replicate that with a RAW file, is using the camera supplied RAW software (which doesn’t work on linux), or by using a 3rd partyAI noise reduction app (which don’t work on linux). If I don’t use them, then I’m in the strange situation where my high ISO JPG preview photos look better than an end to end post processed RAW file.
If I was “embracing the flaws that my camera creates” I would be shooting in JPEG mode, using images mostly straight out of the camera, and they would be less noisy than what I can achieve with current linux tools.
I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and using m43 (or four thirds before it) for most of that time. I know what I want from my photography, and I know the tools that give it to me. What I want is for the image to look like the scene that I saw. I don’t care if it’s a pixel perfect match for it. I don’t care about embracing the flaws that a camera introduces, flaws that don’t exist when viewed through the human eye (reduced dynamic range, sensor noise etc), out of some sense of “purity”. Purity that was lost the moment I pressed the shutter on a digital camera that has to encode the image in software to make it visible.
Fair enough! Thanks for sharing that. I think there’s a beauty in photography that we can each create in our own way, and that the process is part of the photographer’s expression, despite the viewer knowing none of that.
Gaming is my struggle, right now. On x11, I get stable framerates, but even though my benchmarks show 60+ fps, it sure looks lower to my eye. On Wayland, gameplay is smooth, but I keep getting this weird thing where after 20-30 minutes of gameplay I’ll get this weird input lag, where my mouse movement stops and then “catches up” every second or so, resulting in choppy gameplay despite the smooth framerate.
If I can figure that out, I’d happily drop my Windows partition.
At work the only issue I ever found is the requirement to use Power Point for presentations and Word for filing patents. LibreOffice just did not translate well enough. Have not tried OnlyOffice.
Edit: Complex Excel sheets especially with macros would be a problem too. These are not always cross version Excel compatible for that matter. One reason I shifted that stuff to Python long ago and voided that issue.
The sad thing is I’ve encountered funky compatibility issues just between current versions of word. Going from Office 2022 (I think. I honestly can’t remember their LTSC office releases off the top of my head at all) to M365 triggered some minor formatting changes, and going from local word document to one that’s shared on SharePoint completely fucked up all of the images in the document and required many hours of rearranging the images because word still sucks for desktop publishing
I remember working on a large doc around 1990. Pagination and figures, what a nightmare. Sounds like maybe similar issue. I’m not really sure Office impoved after say 2003. They could have called it done at that point.
Image handling has definitely gotten better in the last 10 years or so, but realistically you can get everything you want done with Word 2003 today
Yeah it’s quite nice and more fun to use than Windows, I admit it’s pretty hectic on my first week of switching, but after learning a few commonly used terminal commands and open source softwares, I can do pretty much almost anything some time without needing to use DE I can just use tty instead
Welcome to the brotherhood.
Linux is awesome
& so are you ^🥁 1, 2, 3, 4… 🎸^
Aww, thank you
Yeah. I’ve been trying to get the word out.
I’ve been screwing with Linux for decades, but somewhere along the line, Linux got easier and more reliable than Windows. I was as surprised as anyone. My last couple Linux installs were a cake walk.
I also like Linux more than Mac, but I’m a tinkerer at heart, and Mac’s (relative) lack of fiddly bits (customization options) has kept me from staying on it long.
Same here.
Daily driver is a mac but I always use a desktop Linux machine at home.
I’ve been using Linux for almost 9 years now. Shit is never so smooth for me but I still love it.
The only device it has been smooth on has been my Thinkpad T530. Every other install I have has some annoying issue, usually small
Not surprising considering how well Linux support on Thinkpad laptop are.
You would be suprised how cool Linux can get when you go deep down the rabbit hole, if you really want to go deep into Arch I reccomend trying a tiling window manager like Sway or Hyprland :3
(Btw these are the dotfiles I use: https://github.com/koeqaife/hyprland-material-you)
The Hyprland dev is enough to make sure I never use Hyprland
Ive yet to find a tiling Window manager that looks as good
Yeah, it does look great.
But in terms of tiling WMs, I have high hopes for Cosmic! It’s coming along really well (though not as pretty as Hyprland)
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:
- 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
- Documentation: I get its still in alpha but morr documentation would be nice
- Extension support: Since its a full DE I thought it would have the advantage of supporting extensions, I guess apparently not
- 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.
I came.
Most of my library just works under Linux.
Plus it is a pleasure to code under Linux.
I wish I could experience this pain free Linux I keep hearing about on this website. Programs constantly stutter and glitch out, and if the computer goes to sleep while running my Linux partition it absolutely will not wake up again. I know this is a skill issue, but I’ve already spent many hours troubleshooting this… I’ve tried several distros as well. Even the steam compatibility everyone raves about only seems to work for me if I don’t use wayland. I can say with certainty that the average person would be completely unwilling to deal with the experience I have had.
I think this “it just works” experience depends much on the hardware and software you use. But no matter what, in the long term, if you’re not willing to put in time and learn how stuff works, how to troubleshoot, how to check logs, use the terminal, etc. I think you’re going to have a bad time and be disappointed.
I’ve used Linux exclusively for the past 10 years, both at home and at work, and I wouldn’t advise anyone who wants a care-free “it just works” experience. Linux is not good at that, and I think anyone who claims it is does more harm than good.
Linux is good for tinkering, self-hosting stuff, connectivity and flexibility. Most people want their games to work, not this. For me, I love it and I use it for everything including sim racing and VR games.
I am more willing to learn things than the average user I’d say - I work in IT and answer incredibly stupid questions more or less daily. Also, im not a shell expert, but I definitely know my way around bash/zsh/cmd/PS, given the system. I have also been using Linux on and off for around 15 years as well - I had things work well in the past.
I’m guessing my custom built PC might be making things harder. The Nvidia card probably doesn’t help, but I feel like my MOBO is probably responsible for my sleep issues. Maybe I just need to try Pop again, I’m currently running NixOS which is my favourite OS in theory, but in practice configuration is a brute force guessing game.
I haven’t had as bad of an experience with Nvidia as people say - but ofc your mileage may vary depending on your compositor, the apps you use, the distro you use, etc.
I also experienced issues with my system completely freezing after waking up from sleep - for me the issue turned out to be due to bluetooth/wifi drivers, and with this workaround things work fine again: https://github.com/alimert-t/suspend-freeze-fix-for-mt7921e/tree/main
My card is mt7922 (found that out withlshw -C network) but I guess it’s having the same issue, because after applying that fix it all works now.It was really annoying and it took me a while to find the issue, because if you just try to google it you find lots of people with lots of different issues, all manifesting in the same way.
If you’re lucky this is your issue too, and the fix above should do it. 🤞Thanks for inspiring me to search around GitHub - I managed to successfully resume from suspend after an hour or so (still doesn’t work in Wayland, but I’m making progress i guess).
Next up is addressing the weird horizontal tearing in all my games!
I’m guessing you’re on Nvidia system?, I never had a program glitching or crashing on me ever since I make the switch (I exclusively use Wayland and never touch X11 once), maybe a laptop specific issue just like I can’t get my fingerprint sensor to work on my machine, but luckily it’s not a deal breaker for me
Correct. But I’ve heard tons of people say Nvidia support is fine now, and that amd is still problematic. I have also tried Pop OS
Which distros have you tried? My experience was rough at first when I finally cut Windows out of my life a year ago. I’m on a ASRock B450M with a Ryzen 3600 and a 2070 Super. Started with Ubuntu > Mint > Debian > and finally settled on Pop_OS, and things have been rock solid. Most recently installed Cosmic desktop on another drive and even the 5th Alpha is playing Steam and Heroic games with few issues.
I started with Ubuntu back in the day, and used that (and its variants) as my only distro up until ~2017, when i used Mint and Fedora in university. I started messing around with Arch maybe 3 or 4 years ago, then tried Pop!_OS, then went back to Arch, then tried NixOS and have stuck there since.
I agree. Which distro?
Plain Arch
I’ve been using it on and off since 1994. I still have a slackware dist on CD with the 1.1 kernel. I think Linux is great although I still prefer to use Windows, and Linux via WSL which is my optimal set up these days.
That’s good to hear about the 3d printer as I have yet to connect mine to try the same thing. I just have to learn freecad though, as i used to use fusion 360 which is not packaged for Linux.
I used SketchUp web for my modeling (it’s free), for the life of me I can’t figured out Freecad, it’s a few open source softwares I can’t warp my head around
Yea, I have heard about SketchUp as well, but if I can learn the full FOSS alternative instead then I’d like to use it. I guess I could use Blender or something too, but I really liked the engineering oriented parametric modeling that Fusion360 was doing with the timeline.