this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
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    [–] [email protected] 149 points 6 months ago
    [–] [email protected] 87 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    I'm really confused what this meme is trying to say.

    [–] [email protected] 43 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

    Yeah I think the clown is supposed to represent Windows Executives changing their tone about Linux over time, but I'm not certain. If anything, accepting that you were wrong is a sign of strength in my opinion.

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

    But are they really accepting they are wrong?

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

    If they still think linux is ideologically opposed to them then they should probably stop funding and promoting its use, but honestly there probably isn't a consensus at Microsoft.

    [–] [email protected] 21 points 6 months ago

    "Micro$oft bad"

    [–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

    Who cares as long as it says "Microsoft bad"

    [–] [email protected] 54 points 6 months ago (1 children)

    I can't be the only one, so WSL = Windows subsystem for Linux.

    [–] [email protected] 64 points 6 months ago (6 children)

    which, confusingly enough, is a linux subsystem under windows. The name sounds like the opposite.

    [–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Really just an English problem. Read it as it is a subsystem by Windows for Linux.

    But yeah, LSW would've been more clear. Plus, it's almost LSD.

    [–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (3 children)
    [–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

    Getting DOS within Linux would be pretty interesting to play with and may get my dad a step closer to abandon windows.

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    [–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

    I think it makes more sense to read that it's a "Windows Subsystem for (running) Linux (applications/programs)".

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    [–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

    It should be Windows's Subsystem for Linux.

    A better acronym might be Windows' Linux Subsystem.

    [–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

    WSL 1 is a compatibility layer that lets Linux programs run on the Windows kernel by translating Linux system calls to Windows system calls, so in that sense I understand the name: it’s a Windows subsystem for Linux [compatibility]. It doesn’t use the Linux kernel at all. With WSL 2 they’re using a real Linux kernel in a virtual machine, so there the name doesn’t make much sense anymore.

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    [–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago (9 children)

    I'm a little concerned Microsoft will make a linux distro and introduce proprietary components into it that will drive users of other distros to it because "why use any other distro when the M$ distro can run my games/microsoft office/whatever?". Because that's how they'll kill linux: a bunch of proprietary kernel modules with which only Windows software can run.

    We should have multiple linux mega-corps before that happens, otherwise we're fucked.

    CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

    [–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (1 children)

    They’d probably just buy canonical in this scenario.

    [–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Canonical would have to accept. Given their move towards proprietary code, that wouldn't surprise me in the least, honestly.

    CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

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    [–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

    How would that affect any of us? Linus Torvalds would still be the lead kernel maintainer, all the other FOSS distros would still exist, and all the people that currently use Linux (out of conviction, out of idealism, out of the FOSS/GNU philosophy) would stick with them, meaning de facto no change whatsoever.

    [–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

    Not everybody uses linux out of conviction, idealism, or principle. Many use it either by chance or convenience. The purists are probably not the majority of linux users.

    There are people who already won't switch to linux because windows has WSL. Gaming has held back many people from switching too, although that's becoming less of a problem. However, if there were no reason to switch to other distros, and an M$ distro were to become the most used distro...

    Do you know what M$ did when they had the largest market share for browsers? Do you know what Google is currently doing with their marketshare on the browser market?

    Windows has a pitiful representation on the server side, but if that changed to an M$ distro with proprietary linux modules in order to make certain software work (or something more insidious that I can't think of), it would change the server landscape too. And suddenly, you can't write stuff for the most popular servers without installing M$ kernel modules or software.

    The linux zealots are not the majority. Zealots never are.

    CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

    [–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

    A few things come to mind here.

    1. MS tried to ship a renegade JDK with proprietary features, back in the 90's. That didn't go very well for them, as they drew the ire of Sun Microsystems which was a decently sized player at the time. It was a clear licensing issue, and they lost the case. Point being: they're historically not great at this kind of thing.
    2. The GPL is designed to thwart this scenario, specifically for things like paid software (e.g. Windows). MS would have to move to a "free Windows software, paid service" model before any of this could happen. But the service must be optional, and they'd have to provide the source to anyone that wants it. That said, they're on track to make Windows free (as in beer), so who knows?
    3. Nvidia gets to ship binary Linux drivers, so closed-source binary packages for MS proprietary components on top of Linux might be possible. But again, I don't think they get to charge for that.
    4. WRT to drivers/packages, RedHat famously charges for access to their package repository, making automated patching and upgrading a nightmare if you go without. This is one hell of a GPL loophole and worthy of far more corporate exploitation. I can easily see MS following this path.
    5. "The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it." - John Gilmore - (Many) People will just fork away or happily sit somewhere else in the GNU family tree, far from anything MS builds. If the need arises, compatibility layers like WINE will show up eventually.
    [–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

    The chances of seeing an M$ Winix or something in the next decade are pretty slim, IMO, but to me it's the worst case scenario / beginning of the end. I'm crossing my fingers that windows 12 is shitty, but not too shitty.

    I can only hope you're right.

    CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

    [–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

    thats EEE and we are all afraid of that

    [–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

    It's called Linspire, what you've described happened 20 years ago. It was not the cataclysmic event you described it as. TBH I'm not that concerned about a company who charges $400+ for an OS that still shows advertisements and loses support after 5 years when I could go out and get an OS with no ads or bloat for free that will never lose support.

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    [–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    People who believe Linux is communism really are clowns lol

    [–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago

    No one considers Linux to be communism
    It was MS propaganda to tarnish the reputation of linux

    [–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

    Can't imagine why people would call freely distributing a means of production some commie thing

    That's just good patriotism, ensuring everyone, no matter their means, has access to a vital resource for modern life

    [–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    I like that this exists. Wsl is good.

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    [–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago

    I mean, I like WSL for what it is. Having suffered through the limitations of MinGW32 and Cygwin, I appreciate that the WSL simply "just works." But I'm also not kidding myself, as one could get the same experience from VirtualBox and a little more elbow-grease. I also like how the WSL automatically exposes a host-only SMB mount, making the Linux filesystem a lot more accessible from the very start.

    What I don't appreciate is that the WSL places the Linux firewall outside the Windows firewall. Locking that thing down can be daunting for a novice, if it's ever done at all. Considering that the main use-case for this is development, that means there can be a lot of WSL setups out there with exposed and vulnerable web services on 'em.

    [–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (2 children)
    [–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

    EEE only works if you can corner the market for the technology. I almost guarantee you nobody is dropping Linux in favor of WSL.

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    [–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

    Not really. MS and others have grown dependent on it, and going forward with eee would be shooting their own web service foot.

    [–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago
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