How many times have you setup Fedora or any other Linux distribution and have every single thing working from the get go?

I’m talking drivers, audio, networking, libraries, DNF, repositories, plugins, runtime dependencies, …

Is proprietary software any easier than that though? Don’t you have to put in much more time removing all the spyware and bloat they put in and then spend all your time perpetually fighting against forced updates and applications being installed without your permission?

Whereas with Fedora my experience is more or less install it and forget it.

The “it’s easier” argument for proprietary software I think died at least 15 years ago.

Choice of applications is a different argument.

I guess I just unsubscribe from communities where there are a lot of low-effort memes?

But seeing it here is fine, it’s started some discussion.

Completely agree. Now my hot take for this thread:

If governments some time in the 90s had decided from the start to ban computer hardware from being sold with pre-installed software then we wouldn’t have this problem. If everyone had to install their own operating system from scratch, which like you say isn’t hard if it’s taught, it would have killed the mystery around computing and people would feel ownership over their computers and computing.

It’s the first time I’ve seen it.

I think the same could be said for upvotes as well - I remember the days before upvotes or “likes” were a thing and I don’t think their invention ever really improved anything. I’m mostly talking about downvotes because that’s what the topic is about, and maybe they are more likely to contribute to a negative atmosphere.

Yes, nobody owes any kind of response, but if you’re using it as a form of communication why wouldn’t you want to make sure you’re understood in the way you intended?

But isn’t it ambiguous what a downvote means? Did they not think it was relevant, did they not like the opinion, the tone, the style of phrasing, etc. etc.? Or are they saying you’re factually wrong (which is also another way it gets used)? Also a downvote may not be interpreted in the same way that the downvoter intended. I think it’s better that people just say what they think.

Also, if they can’t be bothered to properly express their opinion, is it really that important? I think the default sense is indifference not acceptance. Anecdotally speaking I’ve observed that echo chambers have only got worse since voting has become a thing.

I vaguely remember some old forum doing something like that years ago. I can’t remember exactly what happened but I remember there was some kind of downside, like people spamming upvotes towards the end of the day to use up their quota or something.

I’m surprised, it’s one of the larger instances. Just be aware that Beehaw doesn’t federate as widely as most instances - in my opinion you get a better signal-to-noise ratio like that but not everyone wants it.

Having experienced platforms with just upvotes, and platforms with up/downvotes, I really think downvotes are bad - for me at least.

I think it encourages laziness - much easier to just downvote someone than actually critique them. It also makes me hesitate to post something mildly controversial or against the grain through fear of being penalised. I’m speaking for myself here - I’m guilty of both of those things.

That’s one of the reasons I’m on Beehaw, because Beehaw doesn’t federate downvotes I can neither see them nor give them - and it just feels like a much nicer Lemmy experience - and I feel like it makes me automatically nicer to people as well.

(n.b. You can hide downvotes in settings on any instance, but you can still see them by hovering over the score and it still affects comment ranking - unless you’re on Beehaw or something else that does similar)

Like others, I remember when they were the new exciting upcoming distro. Though Fedora was my main daily driver at the time, I test drove 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog) - it came with a video of Nelson Mandela (unless I’m embarrassingly misremembering), I still have the CD somewhere.

I ended up eventually using the LTS’s 6.06 (Dapper Drake), 8.04 (Hardy Heron) for a lot of things, good memories, until eventually falling out with them over Unity and the Amazon thing.

That would make me kind of proud!

I don’t change my clocks for daylight saving time and live on permanent winter time all year, and just do the conversion in my head when dealing with the outside world.

For some reason this really confuses some people and I get all kinds of questions about it whenever the clocks change.

I think it’s perfectly reasonable and think people setting their clocks to the wrong time for half the year is strange.

I don’t think that’s even a conspiracy theory, I think it’s obvious that’s what they’re doing.

Even for what they offer now; if you already have your payment details registered with “X”, then it’s a much easier decision to make about paying for a blue tick or editing rights or whatever else.

Not strictly, no - there is an apply-live option now. Restarting is still a good idea though as with any distro.

I don’t know if I’d count it because I’d consider it part of Fedora, but +1 for Silverblue. I’ve been playing with it for 3 years and daily driving it for the past year - it’s been great seeing it improve during that time and feels like the future.

Are you replying to the right person?

OK, fair enough, I misread your question. Honestly I’ve not really encountered many websites that don’t work on Firefox, less than 1% surely, and when I do I tend to avoid that website. If I can’t avoid it I tend to fall back to using GNOME Web (Epiphany), or ungoogled Chromium from Flathub (which I think receives regular updates, I’m not sure what the exploit you’re talking about is, should I be worried?).

I would be much more happy to give Vivaldi a go if we lived in a world where much more browser diversity existed.

You’d need a very good reason to not use Firefox given that it’s all that stands against a Google monopoly on web standards. I was using a Chromium-based browser myself until Opera and Microsoft both abandoned their own browser engines - after that I couldn’t possibly justify not supporting Firefox.

Vivaldi does look very good, and takes me back to the old Opera days when Opera was good. But from a privacy point of view it’s just short-sighted to use a chromium-based browser, even if that browser promises and provides privacy.

Lee Mack

The irony is if they did have non-targeted ads I’d have more good-will towards them and I would be more likely to pay their subscription. But spying on users and being sneaky about it makes me hostile and want to double-down against what they want.