Posts by ianbetteridge

Apple buried Copland 30 years ago. Now the failed OS boots in a browser

Re: "SimpleText is unable to run because of a serious error"

Your history repeating point has another layer. Travis Geiselbrecht, Brian Swetland and Dave Bort all worked on Fuchsia and came from Be/HP (WebOS).

Omarchy distro gains serious backing

Re: Careful

"It's one guy's personal config of Arch, put on an ISO and shipped. It's a really weird config, it's not easy for either beginners or experienced users, and it has lots of idiosyncratic personal choices."

So the weird thing is that it's incredibly easy to use for beginners, much more so than anything Hyprland I've used before. Why? Because when you add an LLM to it, you can basically ask it to do anything to your system, and because it has a skill built for Claude etc that tells it how to configure Omarchy, *and the permissions* (something I will come back to) it just goes off and does it.

Simple example: natural scrolling. After years of using a Mac where the default is natural scrolling, the first thing I do on any system is change the touchpad to use it. The first time I used a Hyprland set up, I had to Google stuff, find and edit the right text file, etc. And I could it wrong because HELL what it is with all those nested settings?

In Omarchy 4 I just asked Claude Code in a terminal to change it, and it was done. Then I asked it to distill all my customisations into a script which I could run on a new Omarchy machine to set it up how I like, along with all the apps I like, and it did it. And, of course *saved it into Documents in my user directory* because, yes, it has access to everything on the system.

Now this is a HORRIBLE security environment. I have an LLM that can rampage across setup, files, etc. Even though I'm not an AI Refusenik, this horrifies me. But for inexperienced users who -- like DHH -- buy into the AI hype, it's really great. You can set it up any way you like, and move on to doing work rather than tinkering. And if you're part of the generation growing up now that is used to just typing and typing to a machine agent, it's going to be the most obvious way to interact with your machine and get it doing things you want. That's not for me (at least not on my actual work machine) but it's fairly obviously the future even if I don't like it.

Thunderbird to flap twice as fast from September

Re: Why?

It's ironic, then, that for security reasons images are turned off by default, which means it *could* render them, but doesn't.

Anti-AI open source has an enemy in common, but almost nothing else

Re: AI is not a single thing.

You're right that AI is not a single thing. But I cringe every time anyone says "it's not really AI at all." "AI" has been the name of the field since McCarthy coined it in 1956, and it has covered everything from tree search to expert systems, planners and statistical learning ever since. It never really meant human-equivalent cognition, which is why people started calling that "AGI".

There's also the old observation that AI is whatever hasn't worked yet. Chess, OCR, machine translation, spam filtering, route-finding: all AI until they worked, then quietly reclassified as "just software".

Yes, there is a mountain of genuine AI-washing, and plenty of deployments really are IVR menus with a language model bolted on. And yes, capex has run far ahead of realised revenue. Circular vendor-financing deals, depreciation schedules on GPUs, and power constraints are all a thing. What's politely called "a correction" and more accurately called "financial meltdown" looks inevitable.

But "a natural language interface strapped on to a search engine" is just factually wrong about the architecture. A search engine retrieves documents that exist. A language model produces token sequences that have never existed anywhere, which is why "hallucination" is a failure mode at all.

Some Mullvad VPN customers tunnel for exit after co-founder donates millions to populist party

Re: Sad but not surprising

I'm not saying this is your point of view, but I hear this idea of "contribution" measured solely in terms of taxation far too often. Workers in, say, care homes contribute a lot to the country, in part because the kind of people on higher end tax salaries don't want to be "saddled" with looking after old folk. Ditto the minimum wage employees in nurseries, looking after those £id50k+ parents children while they work.

Take away the poorly paid, and a remarkable number of the services which the richer members of society rely on would collapse. No man is an island, and all that.

LisaFPGA brings Apple's magnificent misfire back in programmable logic

Re: Lisas were expensive AF

It's *really* hard from the perspective of 2026 to understand quite how revolutionary Lisa and then Macintosh were in the 1980s. If you have grown up with smartphones, in particular, both of them look incredibly dated conceptually.

KDE Plasma users face a dire omen of change: 6.6.6 arrives

Re: Red Hat and the desktop

I'm not sure that "don't know how to use Windows and don't care" is actually any kind of criticism. Why should the rest of computing history be dominated by a paradigm from the 1970s? You and I might find WIMP efficient, but if you've grown up with smartphones -- and if you're under 40, you have grown up with smartphones -- why would you not expect computers to work that way? Rather than what oldies like me prefer.

I still remember impossibly old people (perhaps in their 50s) in the late 1980s claiming that any kind of windowing system was inefficient and humans needed to work "the way computers work, with a command line". Times change, and it's the young 'uns that make the world which works for them. It was ever thus.

Purism launches supersized 16-inch laptop for buyers who put privacy before price

Just an aside, but while this is very much not for me, I am glad it exists.

Flatpak-NG sounds like bad news for systemd refuseniks

Re: Yes, please!

Every time I read “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” my mind adds “for me” in there.

Your definition of “not broken” is not the same as mine, and mine is not the same as (say) an admin looking after a massive server farm.

“Broken”, in a lot of people’s minds, has elided well beyond “doesn’t work at all” to “doesn’t work in the way I learned Unix worked when I was at college in the 1970s/80s”.

Firefox integrates an ad-blocker, but not to block ads

Customers? How much are you paying per month?

Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone

Amusingly, it told me that I didn't need to age verify as I've had an iCloud account for so long I must be an adult. That old dot Mac account still comes in handy.

Ubuntu Resolute Raccoon spits out Xorg, but still lets you run X11 apps

Re: Resolute Raccoon

I had a moment there when I thought I-684 was a processor architecture that I hadn't heard of.

Zorin OS 18.1 released - and the Lite edition reappears

If you know enough to care about what the base is, Zorin is almost certainly not the distro for you.

Forking frenzy ensues after Euro-Office launch sparks OnlyOffice backlash

Re: Pretty sure that

If you're working with clients/customers, you are almost certainly going to exchange files in Word/Excel/PowerPoint formats regularly. If your users have to remember to "Save as..." .doc... well, they won't. Cue wasted time.

US state laws push age checks into the operating system

Re: Still running with no Apple account

It's not mandatory, but if you don't then you can't use any Apple services.

Price of popularity: Linux Mint's success also means maintainer stress

If an ordinary user *has* to use the terminal, something has gone wrong. You shouldn't *have* to do it. Different if you want to do it, and I would always encourage anyone to learn a few bits, but it shouldn't be necessary for daily use.

Not sure that Cachy fits in the "not life threatening" category :)

It's a fun distro for people who like tinkering, but for anything which I always need to work, I'd always go with something more boring.

Re: Wayland

Not a pop at you, but I doubt that many people under the age of 40 know or care about screensavers, unless they're retro fans or nerds. They were a solution to a problem which no longer really exists.

New Jolla phone and Sailfish 5 offer a break from iOS-Android monotony

Re: GrapheneOS feel attacked

I like Graphene, but it's developers really do appear to be quite prickly.

Game on! Penguin levels up as Linux finally cracks 3% on Steam

Re: Oh how I wish...

Sadly, I have reached the stage of my career when I spend more time in Excel than Word. How did that happen?

Snap out of it: Canonical on Flatpak friction, Core Desktop, and the future of Ubuntu

Re: Just do it

I think you're correctly highlighting the unproven thing about immutable distros. There are clear advantages in some areas, but is reliability really one of them? If it's not, you end up with the Apple approach of "take it back to the shop"... which would be a bit difficult with Linux!

Re: Just do it

You have to remember, though, that for most users, almost everything about every operating system is pretty opaque. A lot of people want a system which requires zero tinkering, because they want to do things with their computer rather than do things *to* the computer.

If immutable distros meet the needs of people who just want something that works reliably without tinkering, great! The world is big enough for many different approaches.

Ubuntu 25.10 lands: Rustier and Wayland-ier, but Flatpak is broken

Re: Angst

When using Ubuntu -- which is most of the time these days -- I generally prefer using Snap packages. The launch speed issues are mostly gone, and I have fast-enough hardware that it's not really an issue for me anyway.

But boy oh boy 25.10 has some issues in that regard. Case in point: the Snap version of Tuba (the excellent Mastodon version) simply won't launch. The Flatpak is fine. That seems... odd.

Just as an FYI, as of today Flatpak support seems to work fine.

Zorin OS 18 beta makes Linux look like anything but Linux

Re: staying on 17.3

Fair enough, but if you are the kind of person likely to be installing Zorin, you're very much not the kind of person who is ever going to remove Pipewire.

Forked-off Xlibre tells Wayland display protocol to DEI in a fire

"Wayland is being pushed by the same people who actively prevent improvement to X11"

I think, if you're going to make a statement like that, you ought to tell us who "those people" are.

Re: Code talks

If you think that the repercussions of slavery are not still being felt today, you really don't have a clue what you're talking about.

Re: Code talks

"kinda how you see it" demonstrates you really don't have a clue what you're talking about.

Re: Code talks

"They basically let the bigots hire more bigots"

and...

"Diversity needs to be organic"

How do you propose to get to your second state from your first one? Bigots hiring bigots who just hire more bigots aren't going to suddenly start to hire more diversely "organically".

Re: Code talks

"Agreed that I don't like to see the politicisation of software. However, a large segment of the loony left have made that point rather moot."

Ah, the "they did it first" argument.

LastOS slaps neon paint on Linux Mint and dares you to run Photoshop

Re: 1998

"It Just Works..."

For you. That's the important caveat.

And you know what, that's fine! But it's not true for everyone. Any time you have to reach for the command line – it's not "just works" for most people. Any time you have to do any kind of config in a text file - not "just works" for most people.

Part of the problem is that Linux users are perpetually stuck in the 1990s. Consider the sheer volume of comments on any article here which strays into Windows claiming that the peak of user interface design was Windows 97. And Linux "just works" to the same degree, largely, that Windows 97 "just worked". Mostly, it's fine. Run into something which requires tweaking - which you will do every now and then - and you're going to have to get a knowledgeable friend in. Or try and Google it, which will lead you down a rabbit hole of bad advice and waste a lot of time, if you're not careful.

None of this is *bad*. And for a couple of non-technical friends of mine, Linux works fine. But for a few months they needed hand-holding through it, and I would welcome any effort to make that handholding less.

Most modern operating systems – macOS, Windows 11, ChromeOS -- are fairly forgiving. Users can fumble around and find workarounds for doing things, even if they're not the optimal way of doing it. Linux is not forgiving, not at all. Try the same approach and it's still remarkably easy to break things in a way which will cost you a long time (I know, I've done it).

All of which is to say: I agree with a lot of the points that are being made here. If all the effort that's spread across a bazillion distros went into two or three of them, Linux as a whole would be in a better place. There are HUGE blind spots (accessibility being the biggest). The response you get when you point out Linux's failings tends to be a thousand different variants of "well it works for me, why you can't be more like me I don't know, you must be stupid".

Linux is *remarkable*. But it's not the one true operating system, and it won't be until we stop thinking that the peak of operating systems was nearly thirty years ago.

Apple to add fresh accessibility features for 2025

Re: Deaf aids?

Not really my area, but I think M2 Macs and beyond have the same support - https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mchle83953a5/mac

KDE 3 lives to fight another day as Trinity Desktop 14.1.4 hits the shelves

Re: Well done Trinity.

"Windows 95 was a design classic. There was only a single thing wrong with it: it was single-threaded."

Begging your pardon, guvnor' but I don't think that's right. Sort of. Windows 95 was multithreaded -- but only for Win32 applications, and only when specifically written to be so.

Mozilla is rolling Thundermail, a Gmail, Office 365 rival

Re: Email is dying

"I have about 20 different email addresses for different purposes, and a good email client (or even "Legacy" Outlook) allows me to see them all in one place."

Good webmail services let you do this now, too. For example, Fastmail can effectively act as an IMAP client to any account which supports it. Nothing wrong with preferring a proper application, of course, but the days when webmail services were one-account only are gone.

Dash to Panel lives on, thanks to Zorin sponsorship

Re: Gnome, a reference model for enshittification

Sigh.

I really do not believe you understand what enshittification is. It's not just "getting worse". And it's certainly not "getting worse in a way that's entirely subjective".

Photoshop FOSS alternative GIMP wakes up from 7-year coma with version 3.0

> And anyway I can't drive PhotoShop, which I find even more baffling than the GIMP, frankly. Which is why I do not accept claims that Photoshop has a better UI.

It's not designed for *you*, Liam. You're not, and never will be, a professional graphic designer.

Good UI in a professional tool is about serving its professional users, not people who, well, aren't.

I love that people here are downvoting you, an experienced Photoshop user pointing out the challenges with Gimp because they refuse to believe you're correct.

And you are, 100%, correct. Your point about shortcuts being different *matters* because people who use Photoshop everyday have memorised every single one they use and don't want to spend a long time unlearning that.

The obvious approach would be for Gimp to adopt, as far as possible, the same shortcuts. But NO, it cannot, because the kind of people who cheerlead for it would rather it's a tool that is less useful to professionals and more "their thing".

Re: names

So if I write a word processor and call it N**ger, then invent a backronym, it's fine because it's "a different context"?

I don't entirely disagree with your underlying point, but the way you're putting it is pretty silly.

If you were a Daily Mail reading paranoid alt-right Reform voter, you would probably have a gimp suit in your wardrobe.

Way back in the day, when I used to work for the illustrious Mr Proven, I tried getting some of our graphic designers who had the keyboard shortcuts for Photoshop into their DNA to have a look at Gimp and give me their opinion. They disliked it, immensely.

There were two reasons for this. First, it couldn't do RGB to CMYK transformations at the time, and that was required for anyone who worked with print.

Second, though: the name. "It sounds like a f-ing joke by a teenager with spots" was uttered by one.

So yes, names matter. Especially for tools used by professionals.

Re: [citation needed]

The fact that it wasn't used as an ableist slur - which wasn't what the person you're criticising said anyway - doesn't mean it isn't one.

Words are wonderful things, and if you lack the imagination to use different ones if someone points out something is offensive, that's very much a "you" problem.

Re: [citation needed]

No idea why your post is being downvoted given that it's entirely factually accurate and a lot of the people complaining about what you're saying and getting quite upset are of the "facts don't care about your feelings" variety.

But when they say that, what they really mean is, of course, "I don't care about your feelings (but I'll sure as hell complain if you do anything hurt mine)".

I don't *entirely* agree with you, as it's clear that at the time of the backronym coming about, it's unlikely the original creators thought of it as derogatory. It was just a funny thing from a movie. But we're long past that now, and the fact that some people want to cling on to the past is their problem.

Dash to Panel maintainer quits after donations drive becomes dash to disaster

"Someone should tell the maintainer the difference between OSS and SHAREWARE!"

And you might want to look into why "free software" doesn't mean "as in beer". "LIbre", not "gratis".

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-nyu-2001-transcript.en.html

Murena kicks Google out of the Pixel Tablet

Re: This...

Graphene OS supports the Pixel Tablet, although I haven't tried it myself.

LibreOffice still kicking at 40, now with browser tricks and real-time collab

Re: All you need

Define "you"?

Because I know there are lots of features I use every single day in Excel which LibreOffice lacks.

Agent P waxes lyrical about 14 years of systemd

Dorsey left Bluesky a while ago. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/may/07/jack-dorsey-quits-bluesky-board-urges-users-stay-elon-musk-x-twitter

Meta blocked Distrowatch links on Facebook while running Linux servers

Re: openKylin

If you're ordering it from China it might be cold when it gets to you.

Debian 12.9 arrives, quickly followed by MX Linux 23.5

Re: timeshift

Utterly baffled at the people downvoting this. You might not like snaps, but this is an entirely accurate description of why Canonical uses them. You might disagree, but the rationale Liam is giving you is what Canonical says.

Fedora Asahi Remix 41 for Apple Macs is out

Re: Locked out

At this point it doesn't make any sense to repurpose even a base M1 to Linux, unless you just want to play around with Linux on a very good ARM machine. The performance Is still excellent. I have an M1 Mac mini bought when it was first released, and it works really well and runs all the latest macOS stuff. Four years old it might be, but boy the performance is still good.

Guide for the perplexed – Google is no longer the best search engine

Re: This was predicted - in El Reg - years ago.

"Monopolies are usually short lived..."

Bell Telephone was effectively a monopoly for over 70 years, and regulated as such from the Kingsbury Commitment in 1913 to the break-up of AT&T in 1984. Monopolies are only short-lived if there is the political will to act against them because there are few economic forces which will knock a monopoly off its perch in any kind of short order.