Thank you lol i will look into this next chance i get. I only remember looking at man systemd

my one critique is pretty subjective, but i find it difficult to find simple clear documentation online about how certain syntax works and how certain tasks are accomplished.

Recently i was trying to set up a cron-job type automation to run a script every minute. I know how to do that in cron (and if i didn’t, there are tons of good resources online) but i had a hell of a time figuring it out for systemd. I also wanted to have the script run at boot or user login and i couldn’t figure that one out (but i know how to do it with cron)

i’m not a power user so it’s entirely likely the information was hidden in plain sight and i completely missed it

I remember booting Gentoo in about 7 seconds to the GUI desktop around 2013. A lot more than systemd has changed in the Linux ecosystem since then. It feels like everything has gotten just a little slower.

That’s kind of the best case scenario though: there isn’t even a significant benefit

And by hoops i only mean the kind of thing you just described (despite not being a systemd thing specifically) : small differences with the mainstream distros that might cause friction for someone inexperienced. It’s not the end of the world. I was being a bit hyperbolic admittedly

I think there are plenty of pragmatic reasons an experienced sysadmin or Linux power user might prefer OpenRC or something sysVinit compatible over systemd, but i think those reasons make a lot less sense to someone who is, respectfully, obviously a beginner (revealed by their use of the phrase “gaming compatibility”)

20 seconds isn’t that fast…

I’m using Fedora on a sata SSD and mine boots in about 15 seconds. My laptop running Ubuntu on a sata SSD is about 17. Both running normal systemd

edit: i just timed ubuntu at 12 seconds. i do not have luks encryption though

If you are asking about “gaming compatibility” you should not switch to a non-systemd distro. You will end up going through extra hoops for zero benefit.

Linux over 15 years

currently Fedora KDE and it’s fine

I haven’t found the right extensions yet but hopefully someday

I can’t blame the devs for not advertising regressions, but it’s not something that pointieststick’s blog tends to cover.

The most recent one from the current plasma version was the removal of tiled slideshow wallpapers. You can have a tiled wallpaper or a slideshow, but you can’t have a slideshow of tiled images any longer.

The justification was to reduce memory overhead, which i understand for all the Steam Decks running Plasma, but i’ve got RAM to spare (also xfce and GNOME do this just fine). Now i need to manually make new wallpapers

Another one is window shade. Worked in all apps up until 5.27 or one of the other very late 5 releases. Still worked in 6.0 and 6.1 in non-qt apps. Fully broke sometime before 6.2 and hasn’t been looked at since.

Scroll to change desktop was disabled around 6.3. Thankfully it wasn’t removed, but it’s annoying to have a core part of one’s workflow seemingly broken after an update

Vertical taskbars set to expand automatically would crash the “configure taskbar” interface from 6.1-6.5 for me. Thankfully this one has been fixed.

Window positions are no longer remembered after a restart or log out. Setting applications to autostart in specific locations has been broken for me for a while.

I can probably come up with a couple more but i’m sure you get the picture. In each case the breakage was known before the actual release, and in each case it was decided to proceed anyway.

Don’t get me wrong. Plasma is the best desktop available IMO. I’m just disappointed any time it regresses at all.

except xfce, those are both GNOME forks. Maybe the solution is Trinity DE but for Plasma 5 (Pentarchy?)

just because you find it fun doesn’t mean everyone does. i know a couple Linux users who see Linux as a worthwhile chore: boring, frustrating, annoying, but ultimately worthwhile to get away from Microsoft or to gain functionality Windows does not have.

I agree that Linux is also often a step to the actual hobby: gaming, self-hosting, photography, audio production. I empathize with someone reluctant to learn the ins and outs of Unix file ownership when they are just trying to make beats without paying Microsoft. Sure the knowledge is rewarding, but i can’t blame a person for not grokking it the first time when on the surface is seems pointless

If someone is making an effort to learn and doesnt take my time for granted i’m happy to help them.

Also man pages are usually good but lots of software half-asses them these days

no “ultimate distro”, but i do wish there was a bigger culture of “no regressions for users”

Plasma 6 has been a series of regressions for me, such that i find my computer a little less functional almost every time i update.

That said i still like it miles better than mac or Windows, which are even worse about this

the problem was that nobody paid ooops@feddit.org to read any of this

i’m not seeing that stuff much but i do believe you

RTFM makes more sense in a professional context. I don’t expect anybody to read anything unless 1 they want to or 2 they are being paid to

Saying RTFM in a hobby or recreational space is just being an asshole for no good reason

Point 1 is assumptive, but not necessarily wrong. Social media companies have deep pockets, and these laws help them deflect responsibility for child abuse that occurs on their platforms.

Point 2 is well argued, but i’m not convinced it applies here. California could have the least harmful version of such a law, but it does not follow that those laws would be adopted more generally over something more harmful. Texas, New York, Illinois, and Florida are also very influential in the US as far as lawmaking goes

Point 3 is kind of a red herring fallacy.

Point 4 isn’t really argued at all. I don’t see how this fights fascism or how California’s law is explicitly immune from fascist abuse.

Point 5 is one that i can’t argue with due to lack of information. I acknowledge that abuse is happening every day on platforms like Roblox and Discord, but i’m not convinced that those platforms will actually have less abuse as a result of this law

Point 6 is addressing a fallacy. baseline shifting is a contextual phenomenon, and whether it applies here has little to do with the subject being discussed

office works fine if you use a translation layer like proton. There are also free/open source office suites that are file compatible and way better.

specific versions of Adobe work with proton, but not all. There are better alternatives on Linux for the most part.

pirated or legit makes no difference

It can be both!

This is being pushed by social media companies that don’t want to be responsible for age verification

Stability in the sense of: my computer does the thing i expect with the hardware i happen to have, every time, over many years.

I agree Debian is up there. I only mentioned Arch because of the massive userbase. I think Debian is a little more technical (for a new user with limited time and attention) than Ubuntu or Fedora, but much less so than Arch

Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, and Arch are undoubtedly the big 4 Linux distros in terms of long term community, stability, and documentation