Operating System references

Electronics
21

This is the exact reason I never recommend Apple’s products to anybody. I wouldn’t necessarily feel uncomfortable recommending any particular device or even an entire operating system… but if you recommend an Apple product, you’re more-or-less signing them up for the entire ecosystem. I’m definitely uncomfortable making that kind of recommendation. Vendor lock hurts consumers, so IMHO, Apple users are actually hurting themselves.

Yeah, I can think of a few scenarios where it’s definitely easier on Windows. I had this experience with Unreal Engine recently for a plugin I’m working on, and it was definitely easier/better on Windows at first. That was mostly from lack of documentation though - now that I have my build environment set up correctly in Linux, it’s better - but that’s probably only because the rest of the desktop is more comfortable for me.

Your comment about web dev on Windows reminded me of my early PHP dev days when I worked somewhere that only allowed Windows on our desktops. VMs weren’t really practical back then, so finding an all-in-one, full-stack “WAMP” installer dramatically improved my quality of life on Windows. Thankfully now VMs are much more performant and WSL probably means I’ll never have to use MinGW ever again. Perhaps even more thankfully, I don’t work at a place like that anymore lol

Alright, this made me laugh out loud. I haven’t experienced your specific pains, but I can totally sympathize! Regarding GPUs though, I have opinions that are similar to Torvald’s.

We could go back-and-forth on gripes like an old-fashioned flamewar, but we probably don’t want to do that…

Oh, I guess we do want a flamewar then! I’ve heard emacs is an ok operating system - the only thing it lacks is a good editor :-p

Just kidding! Back to the topic, we’ve dug into the weeds a bit, and @james.a.seymour didn’t say anything about his use-case, what hardware he’s running on, etc. All that we know is that he’s currently running Linux, but even that’s not saying much since Linux runs on everything. When I read his post, I kinda assumed he was looking specifically for linux distros, but maybe not. James - give us more info so we can make more informed recommendations! Also, if you haven’t found r/FindMeADistro, you should check it out.

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OH subbed that subreddit!

I’m a wannabe Vim user. I use notepad++ at work to program on my windows studio 6 machines. With the software I’m forced to interface I live in strings hell. Also there are undocumented globals to collide with.

This laptop is my daily driver. I was pleasantly surprised at how slick kubuntu took over. KDE connect hooked right up to my phone, system needs a little thermal paste and some screws and it will be good as newish. I need to spend more time programming at home, but I’ve got too many projects atm.

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I love KDE Connect. Probably my favorite feature is that when someone calls my phone, my PC will automatically pause any media playing. When I hang up my phone, the PC automatically resumes. I don’t receive many calls, so this happens infrequently enough that I usually forget that it’s a thing until it happens again. Reading and replying to messages and phone notifications on my PC is super nice too, as are the (two-way) remote control functions, clipboard sharing, URL sharing, file sharing, etc., but all that’s basically expected functionality at this point. The phone-calls-pause-media thing still feels magical to me.

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KDE connect looks pretty cool! I wonder if it will work with a second line on a cell phone? I use Google Voice as a 2nd number and I’m thinking of transferring that line to tmobile digits but I like the way Google voice delivers messages as email. I hate that it requires callers to state their name when calling me. You should hear some of the strange things people say when they are prompted. And the conversation always starts out with them obviously wondering why they had to say their name. Like I’m sitting back screening calls or something.

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It’s agnostic to lines on the phone. It just sees the single device as that - a single device

I haven’t used GV in a long time, but that used to just be a setting you could enable/disable

What I imagine

26

Dude that’s how we let our parents we need a ride when we spent the quarter in our roos on an Aladdin’s castle token!

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I assumed the same. And spent quite a while a few months back searching the web for that. All i found was a lot of other people with the same problem. I’ll keep looking. :+1:

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@james.a.seymour Holy crap I wonder if alladins castle still exists anywhere.

29

I dunno, but can you imagine me, back in the early-to-mid eighties, wearing a LeMans Family Fun Center (later Aladdin’s) vest, making change and fixing video machines on the game floor?

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30

I totally could see you doing that. :slight_smile:

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31

I’ll start by apologizing for my comment not improving the conversation in some way, but I’ll use it to introduce myself in this space of MakeICT- I’m Eric White, new to all this, barely a tinkerer, aspiring maker.
This has been the Best Rabbit Hole I’ve gone down in forever. This is why I found my way to MakeICT. After moving back to the area a year ago, starting over in many ways and having the time and space to do so, I’d been encouraged by a buddy to get into programming and computational thinking. I mentioned it to few folks in the Wichita area and multiple, unrelated parties suggested I checkout MakeICT. I’d seen it driving by over on Douglas, and had looked at the website a little, but didn’t make it to a Tuesday evening until July. I’m the noob of the noobs, and an old, crusty brained noob at that, but this stuff lights me up. I’ll be picking up a raspberry pi asap and digging into the software and working to truly break it! @james.a.seymour thanks for starting this thread! @dom you rock, I ate up your thorough and detailed explanations, I could have read on and on! @Erik great input and way to keep it going, if you felt like you were dumbing down the conversation I should be ashamed for even touching my keyboard! @ssaner you didn’t write the lengthy responses as some others, but still left me with hours of googling and worthwhile rabbit holes. @SamSchurter a pragmatist after my own heart,
something I don’t have to fiddle with and tweak incessantly to get it to work, pretty much what’s kept me at an arms length of computers since my dad pushed the commodore 64 at me almost 40 years ago! @ladeana thanks for being in the communication loop and pulling me in when I first reached out months ago. I would say I am also a kinesthetic learner, too much reading or listening about it without applying it leaves me feeling like I’ve fallen into a black hole and don’t know which way is up…so any direction toward the light anyone can give is greatly appreciated. As another buddy told me recently after I’d expressed my frustration- ‘suckin’ at something is the first step to becoming sorta good at something’
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32

Welcome @EricW! There really are a lot of truly amazing people here. And the org itself is awesome too.

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