Sounds like you’re categorically defining everything someone does without being forced as “want”. But who is the “you” that wanted to do it if you’re not conscious of that want? Do I breathe while in a coma because I want to? Do I stop breathing because I want to? Or does my low-level biology force me in those cases?
You seem to be fundamentally misunderstanding my point, as I didn’t mention the average person’s intelligence in any way. All I’m saying is that minimizing the effort required to really try multiple distributions is a terrible way of introducing people to Linux. It will only lead to frustration and rejection. Choosing your bread doesn’t require investing dozens of hours.
No, it absolutely is hard, and those are bad comparisons. Growing up you interact with bread and cars, and you build a preference based on what you’re taught and what you experience. If I go into a new store and see a dozen types of bread I’ve never eaten, I can still make inferences about their taste, texture etc. This is not the case with Linux distributions - if I’ve never used Linux before, I literally don’t know what the hell I’m doing.
And it’s absolutely unrealistic to expect your average person to try a few out. They won’t be able to decide on technical grounds, and they’ll have to use the distribution for some time to build enough experience for a preference. Going back to your car example, it’s like suggesting people buy a few cars and decide which one they like (since they don’t have the experience to make judgements based on short test drives) - you’re asking them to invest a lot of time for something they don’t really need or want.
People learn how to do that while growing up. The same doesn’t apply to software, people usually choose what they know.
It’s 2024 and this guy still can’t read.
Okay, but why do you tell me that I’m wrong and keep going on about unrelated points? I don’t care if the user-facing name is different from the binary name. I have no position on the topic.
I corrected a wrong statement (who is responsible for the .desktop
file of an application). You tried to counter-correct me, but did so on an unrelated point (who displays the application name? I’m still not sure). Positions on whether .desktop
files defining separate names is good aren’t relevant.
Your Mint/Xed example doesn’t show what you think it does. Mint doesn’t just ship with .desktop
entries for a bunch of applications, they are still managed by the respective developers and part of the packages themselves. Mint is also the developer of Xed, so the repository is in their organization, but the .desktop
file is still part of the package. If you install Xed on any other distribution, you’ll still get the same .desktop
entry, because it’s part of the package.
That is all I’ve been talking about. I’m not sure how your reply relates to that, but it would help me if you tell me what you’re arguing against.
No, your Desktop Environment doesn’t have a huge list of package names to app names. It has a list for all your installed packages, but the list entries are part of the packages.
If your system doesn’t have gnome-system-monitor
installed, you won’t have the corresponding .desktop
file, because it’s part of the package. It would be incredibly wasteful and unnecessarily complex for your system to get shipped out with .desktop
files for all possible applications.
Thanks! Sorry for coming on so aggressively.
Do you think DEs just have a huge list of package names to app names, or how do you imagine this would work?
In reality, it’s of course fully on Gnome, as it’s part of their code. Nobody except for Gnome has anything to do with the name that’s being shown.
As my blood type always says: be positive!
I mean, I’m not B+, but I like the sentiment.
I’m fully with you. It’s not a dog’s fault that they are the way they are, and I’ll always do my best to take care of them and have nice interactions - but so many things about them are annoying, especially the barking. I hate loud noises, and they are so loud compared to their size.
I mean, a cat can annoy at worst 3 apartments at once (you, above you, below you) if they run around and scream like crazy. A dog barking in the night can literally annoy hundreds of apartments at once, even though they’re close to the same size.
I love it. Finally, I remember what these pictures felt like before I knew they were bullshit. It’s a certain mysticism that was missing.
No, it can’t copy infinite bits, because it has to store the current address somewhere. If they implement unbounded integers for this, they are still limited by your RAM, as that number can’t infinitely grow without infinite memory.
You can’t tell me that cat doesn’t exactly know what they are doing
If you can’t reject, they either don’t need the pop-up, or they’re not in compliance with the law. Either way it’s in no way the fault of the lawmakers.
It’s not just a warning, it’s also an option to reject.
It’s an interesting question! From my point of view, “devaluing human effort” (from an artistic perspective) doesn’t really matter - humans will still be creating new and interesting art. I’m solely concerned about the shift in economic power/leverage, as this is what materially affects artists.
This means that if your robot creates paintings with an output rate comparable to a human artist, I don’t really see anything wrong with it. The issue arises once you’re surpassing the limits of the individual, as this is where the power starts to shift.
As an aside, I’m still incredibly fascinated by the capabilities and development of current AI systems. We’ve created almost universal approximators that exhibit complex behavior which was pretty much unthinkable 15-20 years ago (in the sense that it was expected to take much longer to achieve current results). Sadly, like any other invention, this incredible technology is being abused by capitalists and populists for profit and gain at the expense of everyone else.
Makes butt-chugging them a heck of a lot easier