What year?

I have several Mac laptops running Linux with hardware from 2012 to 2020. I find that EndeavourOS works best and WiFi works out of the box.

It uses the wl drivers generally (NOT b43) with DKMS so the module is automatically rebuilt when you upgrade the kernel. You can just upgrade the kernel using the package manager and it “just works” when you reboot. I have been using Linux on MacBook Pro and MacBook Air systems for years and never had a problem (2012, 2013, 2017, 2020). Also iMacs back to 2008.

If you have a T2 chip system, you need a special kernel and apple an wifi/bluetooth firmware blob. In most distros you have to extract the firmware from macOS yourself but it is available in the AUR so there is a special T2 addition of EndeavourOS that makes everything work out of the box. These are the 2019 or 2020 systems I think.

These “Wayland will never come” articles completely ignore the fact that Wayland is here and has already won.

There are lots of issues with Wayland. They will be fixed, but if this was simply a list of things still needing to be improved, it would be useful.

But most Linux desktop users use Wayland already. It will be 90% in 2-3 years. With the exception of Mint, the big Linux distros already install to Linux by default. So almost every new Linux user starts on Wayland. Few will ever try X11. And if they did, the list of broken and impaired experiences on X11 will bring most back to Wayland.

It really does not matter if every x11 user switches to Wayland. The ecosystem does not need them.

But very few of even the hard core adherents will use an X server 5 years from now. Most normal users will not even use Xwayland. And the simple reason is applications.

Everyday there are more and more apps that are Wayland only. Before 2030, that list will include all GNOME and most GTK apps. Are people really going to give up all these applications because of some obscure advantage they perceive in X11?

Most the the faults the article cites are exaggerated or historical. But it is not worth arguing over the details. Wayland is the future. But it is already the present. It is sad really that the people writing these articles do not realize that they are already in the minority and have already been left behind.

This is a “Linux will never be ready for all UNIX users” article written in 1998. It is both true and irrelevant.

From the video “websites are still websites. Videos are still videos”. The problem of course is that this is not true.

The problem is that technology is still our servant. What are we asking it to do?

First, this video itself. If this same story was being told 20 years ago, it would be a blog post, mostly plain text, maybe one image. It would not be a 1080p or 4K YouTube video. That, in a nutshell is the real problem. The OP, by posting this video, has already chosen a side in that fight. But let’s compare apples to apples.

20 years ago, a web page was made up up a few dozen kb of HTML, a dozen kb of CSS, and a few 100 kb of JavaScript. Images were few, low resolution, and low bit depth. The fonts used were probably bitmaps and installed locally. The “computing power” was on the server. It was all sent as clear text. The networks were too slow to send much more. Today, a website sends me megabytes, maybe dozens of megabytes, of JavaScript. And I am probably downloading a bucket of vector fonts too. Not only is the “web application” much, much fancier but now all the “computing power” is expected to be in my browser (on my computer). And all the “assets” like images and video have to be local too. Instead of small 8 bit GIFs, I have huge high-resolution 24 bit AVIF and PNG files. I am rendering SVG and font vector files at high resolutions on my local CPU / GPU. Maybe there is an animated background. To cap things off, everything is encrypted with 2048 bit or 4096 bit keys. It is not that my local computer or my local operating system has become less efficient (like the video implies). It is that the websites have become 100 times more difficult to render. Browse some of those old websites (if you can find them). They are blazing fast and take very little RAM.

And what were videos? YouTube was probably 360p with a video codec designed to be easy to decompress on an underpowered client. Now, YouTube is 4K or at least 1080p and in a codec that is much more computationally intensive to render. It has to be to support storage of these otherwise immense files. A 4K file is literally 40 times the number of pixels in 360p. This is before we consider that the color space probably went from 16 bits to 24 or 32 as well. So, back to 100 times harder like above.

And the premise that “20 years ago” that you were running your web browser and a file manager and a command line all while editing a video on your laptop is nonsense. You had a 1280x800 screen. If you were editing a video, it was probably the only thing you had running. And again, what resolution and color depth were these videos you were making? Were you even editing video? Be honest. How many “content creators” were there then. The multimedia we were editing was probably audio only. The video work we did was more transcoding (maybe cutting out ads) than it was “video editing” like today.

If this same message was being told 20 years ago, it would be a blog post, mostly plain text, maybe one image.

And you know what, my 10 year old computer can still do the modern stuff and it absolutely blazes though the old stuff.

If this were a blog post, I could have a hundred similar tabs open on that 2 GB of RAM he talks about.

So, it is not that computers and software are built wastefully. It is that users expect things they did not expect before. If you are willing to watch 360p YouTube, read mostly text blog posts with the ads tuned off, make simply edited videos in the same 360p resolution, and run a simple Wayland compositor or X11 Window Manager, a totally up-to-date Linux distro will run just as well on your old hardware as you remember. At least, pretty close.

The only really truly wasteful step has been the move to 64 bit instead of 32 bit. We could save at least a third of the RAM used for any modern task if it were 32 bit. But, 32 bit only gives us 4 GB of RAM, which means I could get a 32 bit computer that performs like 6 or 7 GB 64 bit system today. But of course that is not nearly enough. As the YouTube author states, they need 16 GB for the huge videos he is editing. So, 64 bit is not wasted either I guess.

And, of course, on a Windows machine, a third of my RAM and 20% of my CPU is dedicated to running a bunch of crap that ships with my OS to serve the goals of the OS provider, not me the user. But that is an entirely different problem (or, this is his point, I concede this point to him).

An additional message in this video is about “freedom” and “exponential complexity” and “commercial masters”. Of course, there is some truth there. But again, step back.

This video starts with the OP editing a video in KDENLIVE on Linux. What video editing software and OS was he using 20 or 30 years ago as he says. Be honest. We have more freedom and more non-commercial choice than ever before. It is not even remotely arguable.

And complexity. If I install a distro today with say XFCE as a desktop environment, what is the complexity compared to the early 2000s or late 90s? Try to configure your video card and monitor and get back to me. Explain how to configure your WiFi in 1999. If anything, a Linux distro is less complex and daunting now than before.

The issue is that politics in Canada is increasingly adopting the team sports US model. Instead of being FOR certain policies or ideas, people are AGAINST somebody else. In that game, you only need two teams.

Wow. $211 is a steep discount. People are going to buy with Linux just to save money, some will try it (because it is there), and some may like it and stay.

At the very least, people may learn that Windows is no easier to install (or even harder).

OpenSUSE itself could be seen as a fork of Fedora though it is from long enough ago that perhaps that is not fair.

In the beginning there was Slackware ( well, maybe SLS but it is gone now ). Slackware has no packaging system. Most distros want one. Debian is not really a Slackware fork but it was a response to it.

The first two distributions to bring true package management were Debian and Fedora ( well pre enterprise Red Hat really - before Fedora ). So Fedora and Debian are the classic bases for other distros.

Red Hat created the first, and most successful, “enterprise” distribution so lots of people want to clone that.

Ubuntu was the first distro to really succeed at a “mainstream” desktop experience. Ubuntu is itself a fork of Debian but, because of its early success, there are probably more forks of Ubuntu than anything else.

Arch was the next really successful attempt at a new packaging system and a distro for more technical users ( that still wanted a binary package distribution system ). There are forks of Arch but, as the repos are Arch’s biggest strength, few of them deviate too much beyond the installer and default configuration.

If you are going to create a distro based off another one, it is typical to start with the base distro that is how to the package format of your choice.

There are now other distros with their own packaging systems ( eg. Alpine and Void ) but they have not been around as long.

Importantly I think, OpenSUSE is European base and, for a lot of the history of Linux, it was largely an American phenomenon ( yes, I know it was invented in Finland — how long did Linus stay there? ).

Finally, “forking” is often a little more sophisticated now. In the past, you started with some other distro that you liked and changed a few small things that you didn’t. A lot of that is taken care of with repos and spins these days so you so fewer unique distros start life this way. The exception is maybe init systems.

As an example, you could consider Chimera Linux as a successor to Void but it is not really a fork. It uses a different package manager, userland, and init system for example.

OpenSUSE itself has multiple versions. One of them is likely to be close enough for fans that they do not need to splinter off.

I am not American so treat this comment with the low bystander value that it deserves.

That said, I feel like Biden needs to do a lot more.

Honestly, if I was him. I would be considering massively extreme options.

Perhaps he should address the nation and say this:

“I believe the Supreme Court has made a grievous error that threatens the Constitution, our Republic, and the freedom of the American people. They have bestowed the Presidency with powers that it should not have - powers that I as President should not have and do not want. Powers that will surely lead to our destruction.

A President is not a king. According to the Supreme Court however, I am effectively your king at this time. Based on their new law, I can in this moment, if I choose, order the execution of not just Donald Trump but every Republican in Congress. According to the Supreme Court, I can never be charged or prosecuted for these acts. The next President could order the execution of me and my family. They could execute you and your family and there would be no accountability for doing so. The next President can ensure that we never have an open and fair election again. These are not exaggerations.

It is clear that the Supreme Court intended these unprecedented legal protections to shield Donald Trump. However, as President, these powers now rest with me.

As sworn defender of the Constitution, I have taken action tonight to right this wrong and to provide a small demonstration to the American people of just how destructive these new powers are and why we can never allow the Presidency to become above the law.

As we speak, all nine Supreme Court Justices and their families have been detained and will be held without trial at an undisclosed location. Donald Trump and his family have also been detained.

The issue of Presidential Immunity will be put before the Supreme Court when they meet again on November 4th. If they find that, in fact, President’s are not above the law and do not have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution, everyone will be released. Their future, and ours, is now in their hands.

God Bless you all and God Bless America.”

In addition to being useful for gamers, these are probably about to be the least likely to change APIs in the kernel.

History tells us that 85% of these people will move to Windows 11 despite what they say.

There is a real opportunity here for companies though.

1. Move employees to Office 365 online today ( see how many truly need the desktop apps )

2. Start moving early adopters to Linux ( still using Office 365 online )

3. Work to identify and replace any other software that is Windows only

4. When Windows 10 goes end-of-support, move everybody else to Linux

The few that really need Excel desktop could probably run it in a VM or via a virtual desktop ( thin client ).

You could probably stop there. Honestly, I doubt it would even bother Microsoft that much. Office and Azure is the business now.

From there, you could try to advance further if you want.

5. Move early adopters off Office 365

6. Drop Office 365

Honestly though, for many companies, you could almost get Office 365 for free just be combining it with your Azure spend and getting a discount.

There used to be a Linux just called Red Hat Linux. It was run by Red Hat obviously but a community built up around it.

Fedora was literally created by RedHat and staffed to be the “community” distro. They did this so that they could be “corporate” with Red Hat Linux ( now called Red Hat Enterprise Linux ).

I find it funny when people say that Red Hat is going to try to take away the community in Fedora and use their corporate behaviour in RHEL as an example. They literally created them both. The whole point of Fedora is to be community driven.

Fedora is a lot like RHEL in most ways but absolutely not a competitor to it. More of a testing ground. This is all by design.

Where things went wrong for them is that somebody created a bug for bug clone of RHEL. The story was that the clone would be a “community” but that is bonkers because ( by definition ) the clone cannot deviate from RHEL. It cannot innovate. It cannot modify or contribute code ( not even fix bugs ). So, it was just a zero cost version of RHEL. The whole reason for creating Fedora was to prevent that.

Anyway, Red Hat likes Fedora and WANTS it to be “free” and anybody that understands the history knows why.

In fact, the problem is somewhat that Fedora is not allowed to get too corporate. You will notice that Fedora is one of the staunchest distros with regards to including potentially patented codecs and such for example.

I am not sure how this is “for free”. He is paying in wood. If nobody bites, I guess he will have to switch to money. Good chance somebody takes him up on the offer though making it win / win.

What is the problem here?

Time to switch to Mint ( or Debian ). I have not like Ubuntu for a while but this forced match to snaps seems too much.

I use Arch myself. I have been considering trying Debian Stable with Distrobox / Arch. The stability of Debian with a totally current and massive package inventory ( thank you AUR ) sounds like perhaps the best of all worlds.