“software-properties is an old gtk application essentially focused on deb/apt world. Many of its features are dangerous or too complex for normal users (removing main, enabling proposed, source without specifying what, …)”

First it was Mir, the alternative to X and Wayland. Then it was Unity (notice the name!), yet another desktop environment. Now it’s snaps, as an alternative to flatpak.

Are you noticing the pattern? It’s always Canonical trying to force some distro-agnostic tool into the Linux community, so other distros start depending on Canonical. Always doing this through unnecessary fragmentation.

To be clear, fragmentation is not always bad. Sometimes it enables people to appease different target demographics; specially in the context of Unity. However the way Canonical does this stinks “we want control!” from a distance.

With that in mind, look at the part I’ve emphasised. It shows the actual reason why Canonical is ditching software-properties from the defaults: because it wants to press further for snaps, in detriment of .deb packages.

What follows is basically an excuse. I don’t think it’s actually removing it because “it’s too dangerous” or whatnot. However, if anything “this is an excuse, not the real reason” only adds injury, because it shows 1) that Canonical sees no problem misleading the users on why it does something; and 2) the people working there are so detached, but so detached from the userbase that they don’t get why this would rub users the wrong way. (It’s basically a “you’re trash too stupid to not cause itself harm” dammit.)

Ah, by the way: Canonical was always some sort of Apple wannabe.

February 04, 2025

I wonder if they gave up, after seeing how poorly Copilot was received.

I would recommend Linux Mint because, first, it’s the one everyone says, and second, it was the Linux OS that I started with, fresh off Windows.

Both are bad reasons to pick a distro to recommend. Better reasons would be

1. You got some experience with that distro and you’re willing to help the newbie in question, with issues that they might have.
2. The distro offers sane out-of-the-box defaults and pre-installed GUI software.
3. The distro is reliable, and won’t give the newbie headaches later on.

why not just skip the middleman and get right into the distros that have a bit more meat on them?

Because a middleman distro is practically unavoidable.

You don’t know the best distro for someone else; and if the person is a newbie, odds are they don’t know it for themself either. So the odds the person will eventually ditch that distro you recommended and stick with something else are fairly large.

Cinnamon vs. KDE Plasma

I have both installed although I practically only use Cinnamon (due to personal tastes; I do think Plasma is great). It’s by no ways as finicky as the author claims it to be.

Plasma is more customisable than Cinnamon indeed, but remember what I said about you not knowing the best distro for someone else? Well, you don’t know the best DE either. You should rec something simple that’ll offer them an easy start, already expecting them to ditch it later on.

So, why don’t I just recommend Linux Mint with KDE Plasma? Well, the cool thing about abandoning Cinnamon and embracing KDE Plasma is that it unlocks a ton of distros we can pick from.

That’s circular reasoning: you should ditch Mint because of Cinnamon, and you should ditch Cinnamon because it allows you to ditch Mint.

Bazzite, Novara, CachyOS

Or you can install all those gaming features in any other distro of your choice.

This made me think on the potential roles the three outer planets* (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) in the scheduler.

• Uranus: looking at things from a new angle. Innovation, intuition, ruptures with tradition. Higher octave of Mercury; so if Mercury is ruling network and I/O tasks, perhaps Uranus could rule specifically data creation and writing?
• Neptune: elevating things past the concrete, into the abstract. Inspiration, illusion, refinement. Higher octave of Venus; so if Venus rules desktop and UI processes, Neptune could focus on the windowing system.
• Pluto: changing the nature and “hidden-ness” of the things. Metamorphosis, unearthing, cycles of [con/de]struction. Higher octave of Mars; so if Mars handles CPU hogs, Pluto could handle specifically things that have to do with cryptography.

*before the “ackshyually” crowd points this out, the word “planet” in Astrology is used to convey any moving (from our PoV) celestial object. It includes things Astronomy wouldn’t consider as planets; such as the Sun (a star), the Moon (a satellite), and Pluto (nowadays a dwarf planet). So the situation is a lot like tomatoes being fruits, you know? “Yes” or “no” depends on the definition, and the definition is built around a purpose.

Also I’d like to point out that, although I learned a fair bit of Astrology in my teens and 20s, I don’t take it seriously. It’s mostly babble, like tarot; but just like tarot, it’s fun babble.

Be glad they didn’t include Neptune, Uranus or Pluto.

Imagine some system task running like your computer was a potato. Then you look for the reason, and it’s because the task is a CPU hog, and its associated planet is in Cancer/Scorpio/Pisces. Now imagine the associated planet was Pluto, that spends ~20 years per sign. (Note some astrology schools do take those planets into account.)

In fact even system daemons and kernel threads (Saturn) will be a mess, 2.5 years per zodiacal sign.

So yeah, fucking dumb idea. But brilliant at the same time.

I’ve switched systems some 15? years ago. But my mum did it recently, so I asked her this question. (Disclaimer: she isn’t the one managing her machine. Guess who does it.)

She claims it’s basically the same thing. She was surprised her start menu got different some days ago (when I updated her Mint), but it was the good type of surprise, like, “ah, it shows my profile pic now!”. Then she rambled about things that disappear from her email, but that is not an OS issue, it’s PEBKAC (she’s extremely disorganised). And… that’s it.

“This is an LLM — Linux Libre Machine!”

Okay. I could spend hours and hours criticising GNOME for a lot of things, but this is not one of them. It is not removing functionality, as the article implies; as others here highlighted, it’s simply changing a default. That’s completely fine.

I just tested it in Wayland and couldn’t get it to work there.

But in X it works fine for almost every application. Exceptions are usually the same ones who throw hissy fits against dead keys, like games. For those, I typically type the text in a notepad, copy it, and paste it there.

I learnt about .XCompose in my last uni times; it made typing transcriptions in the IPA (international phonetic alphabet) actually bearable. Every other strategy was a mess: copying and pasting was too laborious, and it was too easy to forget something if I used find-and-replace.

# random misc
<dead_acute> <%> : "‰"
<dead_acute> <minus> : "⇌"
<dead_acute> <apostrophe> : "`"
<dead_acute> <h> : "⟨"
<dead_acute> <j> : "⟩"
<dead_grave> <h> : "͡"
<dead_grave> <j> : "͜"

# typing Polish in an ABNT2 keyboard
<dead_grave> <C> : "Ć"
<dead_grave> <c> : "ć"
<dead_acute> <D> : "Ą"
<dead_acute> <d> : "ą"
<dead_acute> <F> : "Ę"
<dead_acute> <f> : "ę"
<dead_acute> <X> : "Ż"
<dead_acute> <x> : "ż"

# Subscript numbers
<dead_acute> <0> : "₀"
<dead_acute> <1> : "₁"
<dead_acute> <2> : "₂"
<dead_acute> <3> : "₃"
<dead_acute> <4> : "₄"
<dead_acute> <5> : "₅"
<dead_acute> <6> : "₆"
<dead_acute> <7> : "₇"
<dead_acute> <8> : "₈"
<dead_acute> <9> : "₉"

# Change vowel height a bit, consonant fortition, tap
<Multi_key> <a> <1> : "ɐ"
<Multi_key> <e> <1> : "ɛ"
<Multi_key> <h> <1> : "ʔ"
<Multi_key> <i> <1> : "ɪ"
<Multi_key> <j> <1> : "ɟ"
<Multi_key> <l> <1> : "ɬ"
<Multi_key> <o> <1> : "ɔ"
<Multi_key> <r> <1> : "ɾ"
<Multi_key> <u> <1> : "ʊ"
<Multi_key> <y> <1> : "ʏ"

# Change vowel height by a lot, lenition
<Multi_key> <a> <2> : "ə"
<Multi_key> <b> <2> : "β"
<Multi_key> <g> <2> : "ɣ"
<Multi_key> <o> <2> : "ɒ"
<Multi_key> <p> <2> : "ɸ"
<Multi_key> <q> <2> : "χ"
<Multi_key> <r> <2> : "ɹ"
<Multi_key> <t> <2> : "θ"
<Multi_key> <v> <2> : "ʋ"

# Vowel fronting, consonant palatalisation
<Multi_key> <u> <3> : "ʉ"
<Multi_key> <l> <3> : "ʎ"
<Multi_key> <d> <3> : "ɟ"
<Multi_key> <n> <3> : "ɲ"
<Multi_key> <s> <3> : "ʃ"
<Multi_key> <z> <3> : "ʒ"

# Vowel backing, consonant retroflexion
<Multi_key> <a> <4> : "ɑ"
<Multi_key> <e> <4> : "ɜ"
<Multi_key> <i> <4> : "ɨ"
<Multi_key> <r> <4> : "ɻ"
<Multi_key> <t> <4> : "ʈ"
<Multi_key> <d> <4> : "ɖ"
<Multi_key> <s> <4> : "ʂ"
<Multi_key> <l> <4> : "ɭ"
<Multi_key> <n> <4> : "ɳ"
<Multi_key> <z> <4> : "ʐ"

# Rounding/unrounding vowels
<Multi_key> <o> <5> : "ɤ"
<Multi_key> <u> <5> : "ɯ"
<Multi_key> <w> <5> : "ɰ"
<Multi_key> <j> <5> : "ɥ"

# Diacritics, tone
<Multi_key> <a> <6> : "́"
<Multi_key> <b> <6> : "ʱ"
<Multi_key> <c> <6> : "̩"
<Multi_key> <d> <6> : "̣"
<Multi_key> <e> <6> : "ᵊ"
<Multi_key> <g> <6> : "ˠ"
<Multi_key> <h> <6> : "ʰ"
<Multi_key> <j> <6> : "ʲ"
<Multi_key> <n> <6> : "ⁿ"
<Multi_key> <q> <6> : "ˤ"
<Multi_key> <r> <6> : "˞"
<Multi_key> <o> <6> : "̥"
<Multi_key> <s> <6> : "̯"
<Multi_key> <t> <6> : "̃"
<Multi_key> <v> <6> : "̆"
<Multi_key> <w> <6> : "ʷ"
<Multi_key> <1> <6> : "˩"
<Multi_key> <2> <6> : "˨"
<Multi_key> <3> <6> : "˧"
<Multi_key> <4> <6> : "˦"
<Multi_key> <5> <6> : "˥"

# Linguistics misc
<Multi_key> <a> <7> : "ʕ"
<Multi_key> <e> <7> : "€"
<Multi_key> <w> <7> : "ʍ"
<Multi_key> <n> <7> : "ɴ"
<Multi_key> <l> <7> : "ɫ"
<Multi_key> <h> <7> : "ɦ"
<Multi_key> <g> <7> : "ɢ"
<Multi_key> <j> <7> : "ʝ"
<Multi_key> <q> <7> : "ʁ"
<Multi_key> <r> <7> : "ʀ"
<Multi_key> <v> <7> : "ʌ"

A few tips I can give people who want to use .XCompose:

• If you often need a character, keep the keystrokes sequence associated with it short.
• Try to be consistent-ish and organised, it’ll help you to remember the sequences.
• Even then, perfect is enemy of good. Don’t go too hard; note for example I didn’t add letters like ⟨æ⟩, ⟨ŋ⟩ or ⟨ð⟩ to the file, all of those are easier to type with AltGr.
• Don’t feel afraid to rework sequences that you find awkward; eventually your muscle memory will catch up.

I fulfilled the first two by using sequences ending in numbers, but note that isn’t the only way to do things. As long as it makes sense for you, it should be fine.

I’m fairly certain dec05eba (from Phoenix) and metux (from X11Libre, the fork you’re talking about) are different people: metux is still committing to X11Libre, both projects are hosted in different platforms (self-hosted vs. github), and their writing style is completely different.

I currently use Mint (with Cinnamon; formerly MATE, considering to go back), but I used LMDE a lot before. This was LMDE 1 times, though, the distro fancied itself as a rolling distro. Might be interesting to see if Debusine makes it more popular, even without it LMDE was already damn great.

Fedora is certainly fussy.

Pick the one you like the best, really.

Also note that, no matter which one you choose, the developers don’t matter that much. What matters is the admins, the people running your instance. Your PieFed account is in piefed.social where the dev (rimu) is the admin, he looks fairly chill.

Even then, I think “check nearby people for what they use” shouldn’t be underestimated. Of course you wouldn’t tell them to use Neon itself, but if they’re using Kubuntu you’d probably be abler to help them than if they were to use, say, Mint, right?

My point is, that people underestimate the power of offline help, and having acquaintances who know the system well enough to help you out. And that matters a lot when picking your starting distro.

Do you know anyone in real life that has some experience with Linux, and is willing to help you out with it? If yes, use the same distribution (distro, or “OS”) as they do.

If not, as others said, Mint is a good start.

English: [ɔ:]. It rhymes with “dinosaur”.
Portuguese: [ä’uɾ]. Basically how it’s spelled.

Related:

• Mustafa Suleyman*, Microsoft AI CEO, mindblown at people not being excited with his corpo-slop
• Pavan Davuluri, Windows chief, trying to address criticism without doing jack shit to fix what’s being criticised
• Microsoft still trying to push Edge down the users’ throats

“I don’t understand, why did users turn stupid out of blue? Those things used to know basic obedience! Now they can’t even follow simple orders like «be excited»! Let’s fire the User Taming Department and replace it with AI!” /hj

*aka “Suleyman the Chaoswrecker”. Not to be confused with “Suleiman the Lawgiver”, the Ottoman sultan from five centuries ago.

I wish the author had the courage to title the article “Frustrated Windows users are switching to Linux because of Microsoft’s Windows 11 tracking, logging, screen capturing, spying, high-jacking user data to Onedrive, resetting basic user settings”.

Insert rant against dichotomies: this stinks “it’s either as big as Reddit or empty” from a distance.

My best experience with forums was one where we celebrated the day we got 300 users at the same time. It still felt vibrant, active, nice to be there. In comparison with that forum, 38 000 monthly active users is huge.

Plus those muppets behave like they really want to wallow in their own misery.