Idk, I feel like gatekeeping is a bigger problem than anime thumbnails.
Idk, I feel like gatekeeping is a bigger problem than anime thumbnails.
The gatekeeping I was referring to is giving people shit for being weebs, furries, etc. etc. Feels skeezy and moralistic. One of my favourite things about the Linux community is how openly eccentric so many people are. Even if it isn't my aesthetic it's way less contrived than the bland wastelands that corporate culture generates.
It wasn't really relevant to your question, but you do you, weeb OP.
I can declare the complete state of my systems in a config file that I store on sourcehut with git and pull down to have a fully configured system on new hardware whenever I want it.
I can use tiling window managers.
I can work with native containers easily.
I can run an operating system that is designed to be the most useful tool it can be, not the most profitable product it can be.
My approach has been to slowly learn how to play to the strengths of Linux and not pine after anything on Windows because ultimately I've gained a lot more than I've lost.
The one piece of software I haven't been able to avoid keeping around is Sigma Studio, so I have a 10 year old shit top for running it, but it also runs in a VM if I need it. Thankfully I only need to use it once or twice a year.
If you rely on multiple pieces of software for important everyday activities and they aren't usable in wine or a VM, you probably have no choice but to use the operating system that is the best vehicle for those tools. Doesn't stop you from also using linux for other stuff, but I can understand how that's not the same as going all in.
You mean like https://tauri.app/ ?
I feel like microsoft's gameplan is less "everyone must use windows" these days and more "we want to gatekeep tech on as many levels as possible". I'm wary of relying on anything they put out. I think we've all recently seen what big tech companies do when they decide its time to monetize more aggressively.
Right now helix is pretty good for what I do with it.
Yeah microsoft is unlikely to pull the rug out from under windows users in one go, their strategy is much more likely to be pushing people in the direction they want to move computing slowly and incrementally over a number of years. They appear to want everyone who plays games, does office work, runs a business, or writes code to have a microsoft account, which they can then monetize in various ways using cloud services because that will be the main way they will deliver what people need.
I feel like we are in the middle period of this strategy.
At the moment I pretty much only buy games on Steam. GoG has been pretty hostile to Linux over the years, whereas Valve is the only gaming focused company that robustly supports Linux on both a hardware and software level. The money I give to their platform directly supports Linux gaming and everyone directly benefits from this.
Valve is also an exceptionally rare example of a privately owned, not publicly traded company of their size. Gabe Newell himself owns a majority stake and has shown that he is more interested in running a company that can make effective long term decisions than a company that desperately suckles at the teats of short term profits and corporatocracy. As long as this stays true, Valve is in a vastly better position to resist enshittification than most big tech companies out there. Valve doesn't need to pull a Red Hat unless fundamental things change, and Gabe seems pretty happy to be in a position where he doesn't need another layer of corporate overlords.
I'd definitely prefer to have DRM free stuff, but Steam is a pretty good compromise at the moment. If Valve ever goes to shit, I'll just take steps to access the games I own in a way that is independently well supported on Linux. I suspect there will be multiple ways to do so if it ever comes to this. Proton being open source counts for a lot.
NixOS is absolutely worth the effort. You have to frontload a bit of effort setting up configs, but you get a whole lot of incredibly valuable stuff in return, and a lot of things become easier in the long run.
This is one of my favourite things about tracker music. It's obviously a lot more complicated to share the full source files for music that uses a workflow involving paid tools or that is complex to replicate. The de facto openness of the tracker format is something that is unlikely to be seen again, but rendering stems / sharing patches / encouraging sampling are all still valuable.
I'd love to see a healthy foss music scene that encorages building on one another's work and would definitely participate. Music is way more interesting when we don't have to fight economic territorialism to make it, as complicated a path as that has become.
Hell yeah, raptor is great.
I also haven't noticed a significant performance hit from using nixos on desktop coming from arch a few months ago. Nix definitely does a lot of stuff and that can chew through bandwidth at times, but overall I think the time saved from not compiling heaps of aur packages has outweighed the time lost to nix updating and maintaining the overall state of my system on every update.
I tend to run relatively lightweight systems these days and haven't really noticed sluggishness compared to an equivalent system on arch. My desktop environment has been sway on both for a while and this may account for my experience of a leaner and more reliable system on both, but it's hard to say.
I'd definitely want to investigate bandwidth optimization strats for nix if I was heavily constrained in that area, or possibly move to something where cpu and bandwidth constraints were given priority over reproducibility. For my current setup nixos has been a game changer on both desktop and server, but I only really have arch as a direct comparison.
( For context, my current desktop nixos systems are a 9 year old low-end cintiq, a 2017 dell optiplex 7050 minipc, and a steam deck. They all have ssds and at least 12gb of ram. All feel super snappy for everyday work with a web browser and a heap of open terminals and workspaces. )
This is probably going to be the right choice. Captive markets are a thing and its not always practical for individuals to get out of them. Changing a good worklfow isn't likely to be worth it unless there's a different workflow you want more.
I wanted what I get with Linux more than I wanted any particular element of what my creative workflow was on Windows, but I've never really been super comfortable with the DAW-VST paradigm for music production in general. I'm way happier having to put a bit more work into doing custom stuff my own way than being locked out of entire approaches because that's not how the software is intended to be used and I'm not in the target demographic for pricing. (I'm looking at you specifically, notch and touchdesigner.)
I feel like every larger open source project that doesn't have a Tyson Tan designed mascot doesn't have one because they refused to let him make one for them.
I agree that this is a sad thing, but I guess not everyone in the Linux world is into furry waifus.
NixOS on steam deck is currently my daily driver because it's dedicated, portable linux hardware with better than iGPU performance I can actually afford. Having said that I'm only about a week in, but adding Jovian NixOS modules to my previous configs has been enough to make it a pretty solid experience so far. Amazing portable gaming is a nice bonus.
I used zsh for ages but switched to fish a few months ago because its navigation features are amazingly smooth and seamless. I generally write scripts in sh or python so navigation is the most important part of the terminal for me. Fish has bash compatibility plugins if you need them, but the main reason I use it is that it's the nicest feeling shell to use for getting around in a terminal that I've found so far.
That counts for a lot.
I use them like browser tabs so I've had like 20-30 going at once before on sway.
Here's the straightforward version of why I use it:
The entire state of your operating system is defined in a config file, and changes are made by changing the config file. This makes it super easy to reproduce your exact system many times and to know where all the many different configuration elements that describe your system are located.
Updates are applied atomically, so you don't have to worry about interrupting the update process and if it fails, the previous state of your system is still bootable. By default every time you change something, you get another option in the boot menu to roll back to.
Making container-like sub systems is super easy when you're familiar with nix, so you can have as many different enclaves as you like for different software versions, development environments, desktop setups, whatever without taking a performance hit. Old versions of stuff are very accessible without breaking your new stuff.
The package manager has a lot of software and accessing nonfree stuff is straightforward. Guix looks rad, but nix ended up being the more practical compromise for my usecase. I didn't want to have to package a heap of software the moment I made the switch.
Sway is just well made, solid and reliable. It does what you need it to do, and it does it properly.
Tried installing debian in 2002 but had no idea what I was doing editing xorg configs so didn't succeed. Succeeded in running knoppix soon after, but didn't really know what to do with it because I mainly used a computer for gaming in those days.
Ran ubuntu in 2007 for a while but I needed to do too many things in a VM so I skulked back to windows.
Used linux for random bits and pieces over the years but was always too tied to art software and games. Proton fixed the games side of things in 2018 so I decided to go all in reworking my art workflow to be linux focused because I wanted not to worry about needing a windows license for all my machines, buying expensive software, etc. etc. (And I wanted to get into creative programming more.)
Running linux has made automation and programming a much more seamless part of the way I use computers and I am endlessly grateful for this. General computing is fun again and I now have a heap of skills I always wanted.
I like it quite a lot on my projector / media pc, but I wouldn't daily it over sway with custom hotkeys. Cosmic is definitely turning my head tho..
Not really partition related but in terms of backups, state replication and reliability:
State of Systems: NixOS configs. Art: Borg + Borgbase. Code: Git + Sourcehut.
Helix + sway + nix-shell + git + sourcehut is a pretty tasty combo not gonna lie.
At the moment I like foot because it's simple and powerful. I did some benchmarks running the notcurses demo with both foot and kitty on my pretty lightweight mini pc and foot ran significantly faster, but mainly I just prefer its balance of power and minimalism over other stuff I've tried so far.
I don't think there's a clear best here. If you find using wine easier than learning new music software, then sticking with what you know is best. If you're flexible about your process, there are a lot of amazing free tools and you'll probably have a more seamless time developing a workflow around them.
Personally I think learning different software is a great way to build a more flexible understanding of the fundamentals of music production, but everyone has different needs so I don't think there's a one size fits all approach.
Ardour recently go a lot of Ableton style features in version 7. Zrhythm looks pretty solid. Reaper isn't foss, but is run by a small & trustworthy team and is my main DAW, though I'm exploring less daw heavy workflows recently. VCV Rack is an incredible piece of software that has thousands of modules and is like having an entire warehouse full of modular synth gear but digitally. Cardinal is a fully self contained version of VCV Rack that works as a plugin and has ~1000 open source modules built in. Bitwig isn't foss, but borrows heavily from the Ableton paradigm, has their own twist, and has always natively supported linux. Tracktion Waveform isn't foss but looks pretty cool, depending on what suits your workflow.
That is certainly one use of the word gatekeeping. Another common use of the word is:
"when someone takes it upon themselves to decide who does or does not have access or rights to a community or identity".