gorio

I don't think that is the general problem. More so inconstancy. It's almost harder to quit vi then to delete your boot record. I am not sure many tools are even that powerful. Which often means you have to use many different ones, making it even more confusing. Linux lacks abstraction and makes you do things manually as root, it isn't very robust.

I don't find that annoyance particularly grave or different from other annoyances. I just updated and rebooted my Windows machine I haven't used for a month, took maybe 5 seconds longer than usual. Regardless if that happens every day that isn't something I am going to base my choice of operating system on. This is one of the problems with desktop Linux, caring about some detail (even though it might affect some a lot) rather than the big picture which affects everyone.

I think you are being unfairly downvoted. On of the major downsides to Linux is that while you can, and often have to, tinker to make it work you can break it on many levels. Sometimes it's even hard to know if it is working properly, until you realize it doesn't. Many developers uses virtualization just for those reasons alone. It might even be a major upside to using WSL, if they do it well.

Few of those fields have professional software available for Linux i.e. what is actually used in the industry. It's the students, engineers and artists that are invested enough to switch platforms. Most people are just going to use the FOSS software on Windows instead.

> That doesn't necessarily mean Windows offers a significant value proposition over Linux either.

But as far as I know that is this case. That Microsoft's offering is much stronger when it comes to large scale corporate deployments. Unless you want to make the claim that e.g. RedHat's offering is on par or better, which isn't something I have heard in the wild.

I don't see how that is a specific problem. All operating systems have annoyances. But if you are for example an engineer you won't find a competitive range of software on Linux. For someone in need of doing software engineering a similar situation have been developing on Windows. WSL changes that.

I don't see how inertia would be the reason if you also believe that it has been good enough for 15 years. I would say desktop Linux simply doesn't offer enough unique value for the effort involved in large scale deployments, unless you are someone like Google. Most things that have improved for users in recent years, like web application, actually favours Windows. Because the primary use case for desktop operating systems are becoming what is beyond that of web or smart phone applications. Leaving desktop Linux with the lowest common denominator.

I think it is more if they will encourage any use outside of the control of Google. Or if they, like with Android where they illegally obstructed companies from doing so, will even discourage it.

Then we disagree. Linux works until is doesn't, which is the problem. It isn't a handful of programs so much as a wide range of capabilities. We can all speculate the taste of the average user, but do you think companies wouldn't love running desktop Linux instead of paying millions to Microsoft? That is what everyone did when Linux actually became good enough as a server OS.

Why? As far as I am concerned these are all legacy problems. Drivers mostly work, people are aware of Linux and it can be e.g. run off an external drive. The problem is desktop Linux just isn't good enough. From a macro perspective it takes significant effort to manage, significant effort to develop for and provides significantly less value to users, developers and organizations alike. And exceptions doesn't make that less true. There is no conspiracy against Linux, or at least not an effective one. If there is anything hurting Linux it is its mainstream proponents like Google, who like to take but not give back agency. If desktop Linux was good enough, or more precisely great at what people need, they would be using it.

So your opinion is that it's ready?

Despite the wording I don't think that is the original definition? The idea is to make Linux viable as a desktop operating system, and whatever comes with that. Not running Linux as an application on another desktop. Which is almost the opposite as in leveraging capabilities outside of Linux.

Maybe more importantly redefining the goal isn't helping Linux much. I remember everyone raving about Android, but now look at the lack of vanilla graphics drivers for embedded platforms.

That said, I have nothing against WSL.

I don't see it making much of a difference for developer OS experience though? Unless you are specifically developing for example a Linux distribution.

> This is probably controversial but my guess here is this; [...]

Not so much controversial as I don't understand what it means. Maybe you could give an example of what that would be?

Colonialism tends to imply a shift of influence. A government bending to the will of foreign companies to keep their power. This is more foreign companies bending to the will of the Chinese government so they can keep their profits.

There are at least charging stations for buses.

For example: https://www.oppcharge.org/ https://www.heliox.nl/

What I would really like to see are small self-driving battery powered trams. (Seems like large "bi-mode" human operated ones already exists).

My opinion is largely in line with "bilbo0s". What I would emphasis is that I don't object to your solution as such. It is that if you are having mental problems your mind is by definition already compromised. That you can't self-correct is essentially the problem.

To try and fix that by understanding your mind might not be a bad idea, but it remains a theoretical solution until you can presume some success rate. Going to therapy might give you that if you have the means, social stability and trust to do so. Which might then result in you leaving the pool of people having problems.

But if you don't have the conditions to go to therapy successfully, or don't end up succeeding anyway, that solution also remains theoretical. The further down this rabbit hole we go the harder it gets the solve the problem and the less pragmatic understanding your own mind becomes. Instead pragmatism would be to get people in a position where they can realistically work on implementing that, or another, solution successfully.

In that sense I could agree that your position could be considered idealistic rather than romantic. As my objection isn't that it isn't pragmatic because it couldn't work, but that it isn't pragmatic because it wouldn't work in many situations that would also required other things.

I don't see how that is a pragmatic view. Rather the idea that you can fix something with personal responsibility, true introspection and growth to find true happiness is quite distinctly romantic.

Square corners seems likely to be less space efficient, which is one consideration of pcb design. Why we don't use round corners or fluid traces might be a better question.

It isn't technically hard. What is hard is making it a priority. Many countries have exchanged long term competitiveness for short term gains. Decommodifying housing would impact those who made it their business.

The process itself would be a range of options. From removing undue leverage that make people buy things they can't (or don't want to) really afford so they are reliant on rising property values, to absolute government intervention. Of course the most likely would be somewhere in between. Where the government by allocating resource (whether that is building permits, land or directly with construction) competes with the market.

And this isn't really the market not functioning as such. The market is accurately pricing things like housing high because of its importance. The problem is that eventually the market will also reflect the decreased competitiveness of important things being expensive.

You won't have universal anything, and especially not income, without equality. The reason that welfare states have low income inequality is because that is a requirement for redistribution. The gains from further automation will likely disproportionally benefit a very small part of the population, but it will be the majority of the population that would be expected to compensate for people losing their jobs. Something that most likely won't be sustainable and even more likely will be impossible to implement.

Also I don't think the West has been progressing much in the last 20 years, especially not compared to Asia. Many parts of Europe and the US is deteriorating, even the wealthier parts, both relativity and absolutely.

I wouldn't overemphasis the troubles of the world. The main issues is that people don't get to enjoy progress to the extent necessary to create a sustainable prosperous society. Decommodifying housing, education and health care would solve 90% of the issue. Almost anything else can then be dealt with. Automation for example isn't a bad thing unless you also have accelerating inequality. Climate change isn't bad unless building a more energy effective society affects some people disproportionally. Etc. That people don't understand this is what will cost them.

I do think smart phones affect people. However what people don't ask when the speculate about the young is whether you are better off otherwise. It isn't really a smart phone, college debt or even housing crisis. It is an opportunity crisis. The prospects for people who don't engage in these activities are generally worse. People >40 don't generally understand this because they are already established, so forgoing these things doesn't have much of an impact on them.

What hardline though? One can't on the one hand sell manufacturing, technology, companies and even infrastructure to China and on the other claim to be uncompromising. I wouldn't mind an actual uncompromising stance on for example labour conditions and investments. But that certainly isn't the case now. Ericsson probably employs less people in Sweden than Chinese companies do at this point.

There are also many example of Google doing just that to various degrees when it comes to open source projects, security research, their own products, dealing with vendors, customers or employment among other things. This of course isn't something unique to Google. What is unique however is their position.

They are probably the most powerful company when it comes computers, software and the Internet. They have the culture, means and goodwill to do a lot more damage than almost anyone else. I am sure that is at part of why people want to work for Google. Not to do damage of course, but because you can make a difference. Unfortunately making a difference for Google frequently isn't the best for rest of us.

What people are afraid of isn't Google having a negative effect by lack of motivation or technical competence, but the opposite. That Google will be very successful in doing what Google think is important while not taking anyone else's merit, interest or concerns seriously.

Being excited and not seeing a problem isn't so much reassuring as what people are afraid of. If you do end up being wrong and Google does gain too much influence from the perspective of someone outside of Google not only would you probably be getting a promotion but also be in a better position with more influence yourself since you are a part of Google.

So unless you are specifically convinced that what people are concerned about won't happen, which would be pretty hard to argue unless this activity differs substantially from others at Google, your comment doesn't really say much. As it doesn't speak to anyone else's interests.