my friend, I want to impart something on you. I write this with the sincere hope it changes your mind.

The average user of a computer does not want to even think about the operating system it uses.

Most people, myself included, want to work on our computer, not work on our computer (which is why I use Mint). An operating system should be the software version of a motherboard – an invisible plinth upon which all the other things you actually care about, sit. In a hardware context the things you care about are all the components plugged into the motherboard – your GPU, CPU, RAM, storage devices, and so on. In a software context, this is email, web browsing, video games, and office software, the programs the average user actually gives a shit about. Notice: Nowhere in that list does it say getting up into the systems guts via terminal or command prompt or whatever flavor of blinking cursor you prefer. Most users just want their programs to run and to never think about the underlying system, and that is okay. Not everyone needs to be technical, and shouldn’t have to be to use a computer and reap the full benefits of using one. I choose to be because I’m a fucking spaz, but that doesn’t mean someone who doesn’t want to be should instead be condemned to inferior offerings from the likes of Microsoft and Apple. If Linux were, indeed, the best – as Microsoft seems determined to prove via Windows enshittification – then it should be, ideally, just as easy for nontechnical people to pick up as Windows. If it isn’t, that’s a problem with Linux that is yet to be solved, not a problem with people.

Fortunately, my experience using Mint for the past year has been largely exactly that. It’s very close to that ideal, if not already there – I’ve had a few very minor issues, but, nothing I was unable to fix via a quick internet search.

I say all this in the hope you’ll understand, if you want Linux to take off, it needs to be accessible to the average idiot. It must be, because I don’t know if you’ve seen the news, but we are not cumulatively getting smarter.

fair enough, I only switched to Linux last February. I do remember it being an absolute pain in the ass in the mid 2010s, I’ve tried linux a few times over the years. But insofar as now goes, on Mint, the terminal is much the same as the command prompt or PowerShell in windows – nice for power user functionality, but generally unnecessary for the average user.

I mean, legitimately, unless you’re doing power user things, you don’t really need the terminal. And if you are doing power user things, then find me a Windows power user that has never used the command prompt or powershell.

sure looked like a concession to me, sport. also, “homophobic”? Lmfao. We were talking about animal fetishists, not gay people – further, I’m gay. Wanting to fuck your own gender is a recognized (and in some places protected) sexual orientation, wanting to fuck animals is not. It’s okay, I still forgive your stupidity. Better luck next time, champ.

I accept your concession. bye then! better luck next time!

god, I miss when Ubisoft weren’t shit

can’t wait for them to go bankrupt. Then we can have another good Far Cry game, hopefully, when the rights are snapped up at auction.

The entire reason for furry porn is that the furries are more human than animal

really? then I have a wild concept for you, something even more human than furry porn: actual fucking human beings, you brainlet. If you were attracted to humans, you’d beat off to humans. by virtue of choosing to beat off to furry porn, you are clearly attracted to and therefor fetishizing animals. that isn’t “a weird puritanical view”, that’s simply an evident truth to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. But it’s okay, I forgive your stupidity.

so IDK what your goal here is other than yelling at people different from you.

I’m supposed to have a goal? that’s news to me. All I did was answer the question that some of us dislike being associated with animal fetishists, in response to someone else asking why a linux user wouldn’t want to be associated with them. At which point you promptly got offended on behalf of all animal fetishists and tried to spin it as being something other than what it is, and I don’t care to indulge your fantasy. If you want to delude yourself, that’s your problem, but nobody else is obligated to play along, least of all me – and if you don’t like it, then find another hobby, my guy, preferably one that isn’t disgusting. c:

feel free to keep being a salty degen though, too, it is funny to watch.

You are smb who calls people watching loli porn pedophiles.

… yes, because the definition of pedophile is “someone who is sexually attracted to children”. It doesn’t matter if it’s fictional or not, the definition of the word makes no distinction, so why would I?

also, hey, fun hypothetical while we’re at it! would you let someone who beats it to loli, babysit your children? Because I sure as fuck wouldn’t. Being fictional or not is irrelevant.

“definitely not an animal fetish”

oh so it’s all zoophiles making all the furry porn on sites like furaffinity, not furries? how strange! it would seem that furry communities have, in fact, a disproportionately large amount of zoophiles making pornography that fetishizes animals in their community. Y’all should probably do something about that! After all, it’d be kind of weird to beat it to porn featuring animals instead of porn featuring human beings if you weren’t, yanno, attracted to animals.

or, y’know, it is actually an animal fetish. But I’m sure you’re totally unbiased and thinking objectively, given your instance. lmfao

it isn’t, but I forgive your stupidity

some of us dislike being associated with animal fetishists, you see

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

legit, the catalyst for me changing to Linux a year ago was reading about btrfs and timeshift. I’d tried Linux a few times before over the years, including dual booting; and I could kind of deal with having to restart into windows periodically to do specific things; but inevitably something would happen that would require me to move heaven and earth to unfuck. But timeshift (and proton) has largely eliminated any grievance I’ve ever had with Linux. It just works, and when something (rarely) doesn’t, unfucking it is easier than ever.

That has more to do with a moderation team behind the game that actually gives a shit than it does with having a kernel anticheat. Kernel anticheat keeps out the skids on MPGH, but a dedicated developer that actually gets paid for their efforts can bypass kernel anticheat with relative ease. This is why paid cheats for games with kernel anticheat (but also actually decent moderation) highly encourage you to be very subtle (using triggerbot instead of aimbot, for instance, or limiting your aim FOV/aim speed). The cheat in question may well be undetected by the kernel anticheat, but that doesn’t stop you from being banned by game admins that pay attention when you’re getting instant headshots and mass reported as a brand new account.

Again. Kernel anticheat is a half-assed software solution.

The latter. Always the latter. You know why?

There are in fact many games with functioning anticheats that do not require kernel access. And there are also plenty of games with kernel level anticheat that is easily bypassed by, and thus are full of, cheaters.

Know why? Because the difference is “does the games moderation team give a fuck?”.

That’s it. That’s what makes the difference. Kernel level anticheat is a band-aid solution that’s cheaper than paying a decent support team what they’re worth. And if they’d rather pay for a half-assed software solution that’s also a gaping hole in user security, then you shouldn’t play the game in the first place. I don’t negotiate with terrorists, and neither should you.

not at all arguing this is okay, not even a little

but

If you are the French government, and you know what the French populace has a history of doing to the French government, it would be understandable to want to keep your eye on them, no?

again. It ain’t cool. But I’m honestly surprised they didn’t hop on the “intrusive surveillance” bandwagon sooner, like, as soon as mass surveillance became feasible, and have the privacy laws they do.

honestly, this is brilliant. Not only is it going to make it easier to understand people with really thick accents – I’ve worked with lots of Indian people before (hotel industry) and I still get tripped up from time to time, especially over a crappy phone line – but it’ll also probably cut down on a lot of the racist shit they may take from customers. I can imagine the average call center employee with a thick accent takes a fair bit more abuse than call center employees who speak without an accent.

on the other hand, this might also make it harder to identify a scam call immediately if this becomes commonplace. Not that perfect English speakers aren’t also capable of scamming you, but, usually the scam callers aren’t perfect English speakers.

I mean, Timeshift with BTRFS is pretty robust. I use it with Linux Mint, couldn’t be happier.

if it’s higher than $60, R* can lick my taint.

in fact, if the online is as ridden with issues as 5’s online has been, I’ll probably just pirate it. Why would I want to pay $60+ just so I can get squeezed for even more money via microtransactions; and having to pay even more for a mod menu, just to exist in a server without being hassled? Fuck that with a rusty fork.

the thing I think a lot of “linux dorks” (and I use that term lovingly) forget about is that most people want to work on their computer, not work on their computer. The OS, for most people, should be the software equivalent of a motherboard – an invisible plinth upon which the actual things you care about sit. With a motherboard, that’s your GPU, CPU, RAM, etc. and with the OS, that’s the applications you run.

there’s nothing wrong with making fiddling with your computer a hobby, and I’ve been known to dabble myself over the years, but for me and most other normal people, that ends up being too much work for too little reward in the end. Mint getting to the point where you can daily drive it and not have to worry about it even if you’re a complete brainlet when it comes to Linux is a massive W.