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Comment by Forgeties79 | Hacker News Reader

Idk I swapped to a Linux-only PC last April and have been steadily shifting over to open source software for basically everything in my life. I haven’t done everything, I doubt I ever will hit 100%, but well over half the stuff I use on a daily basis I have real control over now and can audit.

Keep in mind I am not a coder/engineer, I’m just kind of a tourist in that world, so if I can do it it’s clearly very achievable for many people.

No reason to throw up your hands in defeat. We don’t need everyone to shift over everything. We just need to make sure there’s always space and demand for open source software to keep it alive.

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One of the reasons why a source-based system like Gentoo is particularly nice is that you can compile your binaries with debug flags, so if you hit bad behavior you can inspect, write a patch, compile into your running system, and then push the same patch upstream.

I barely have to do it, but imho, this is how software should work and what running a computer should feel like.

It's worth noting that even more staid distributions like Debian provide you with the means to do this. It's arguably bit more complicated, but saves you a lot of time and hassle on the happy path.

I use OpenBSD and it’s actually the same thing with the additional niceties of binary packages. A bug or an issue with any program (including the kernel and drivers)? Patch and rebuild.

I'm doing exactly the same but you really don't have as much control as you may wish. I mean look at Freedesktop which is basically Redhat staff. The biggest Kernel contributor in SLOC a while back was MSFT.

Gnome and Systemd is a fine example of how fucked up this can get.

I’m on bazzite which isn’t perfect but it’s lightyears ahead of windows.

You can always find bad examples. The good news is there’s still lots of good ones out there right now. No point in being defeatist about it, just do what you can

> I have real control over now and can audit.

> Keep in mind I am not a coder/engineer

How do you control and audit something you don’t understand? What specific steps are you taking?

I depend on the community tbh. Poor phrasing, it implies I personally audit it. But ultimately if I want to I can and I know plenty of folks scour repos/compile code themselves, so if something is wrong it’ll likely come out. It’s open source, they can’t hide it from people who are looking. Also I’m not entirely ignorant - I can sometimes see when something is up, I am comfortable using a CLI, I know my way around a computer better than most.

Wouldn’t you say that’s way better than the status quo with windows/macOS?

> Wouldn’t you say that’s way better than the status quo with windows/macOS?

I would say it’s irrelevant to the conversation. I wasn’t throwing shade or criticising your approach, I was making an honest question to understand your argument better. I have no interest in flame wars.

I’m not engaging in a flame war, you just seem to have a very terse way of writing that kind of caught me off guard. That initial question felt a bit leading and there’s a bit of a hostile tone coming through. Seems it’s unintentional though so not a big deal.

> you just seem to have a very terse way of writing that kind of caught me off guard.

Fair.

> That initial question felt a bit leading

How would you have phrased it? I’m genuinely asking.

> and there’s a bit of a hostile tone coming through.

It’s been my experience that in online writing with strangers it’s best to assume good faith and not assume tone. Read things imagining the other person is smiling and in a good mood (exceptions for obvious trolls). Not that I can do that every time, mind you, we all have flaws, but it avoids a ton of needless misunderstandings and doesn’t escalate.

> Seems it’s unintentional though so not a big deal.

It was. Thank you for replying.

I understand we need to give people the benefit of the doubt, but take this previous comment for example. It comes off as pretty patronizing, I have to really squint to remove that feeling. I understand I have a responsibility to try and focus on the best possible interpretation of somebody’s comment, but it also behooves you to maybe take a second look at the way you’re writing and maybe consider ways to encourage a more generous interpretation. I can only work with what is given to me at the end of the day. Discussions are a two way street, and sometimes people are just rude/combative, especially online.

Anyway it’s all good. I hope you have a nice weekend.

Oh, sure sure, I am in agreement with you. In no way do I believe this to be the exclusive responsibility of the receiving side. I’m usually competent at detecting this and don’t see why you’d interpret the previous comment as being patronising, but I concede I may be having an off day.

Thank you again for replying. A nice weekend to you too!

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