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[#] Wed Dec 09 2020 16:04:05 UTC from ParanoidDelusions

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I think it is kind of a scam. Office 365 and Adobe Creative Cloud - you're actually still running the application locally and you still need enough horsepower to drive the app in the case of Creative Cloud. It just downloads the latest version of the App to your local PC where it runs natively. It isn't a true cloud/thin client application - and your browser isn't effectively the OS, because you're not executing the application *in* the cloud or in a VM in the browser. Tinkertool, which is a site that allows you to create 3D models for printing - is a cloud based app that runs in the browser. Outlook web and G-mail are web based clients. People prefer local clients as opposed to web based ones for examples like these. I mean - actual cloud based apps don't have a lot of consumer penetration in my experience. Companies tend to use hosted websites and servers for things like Quickbooks - there is a savings there for SMBs.. but even then, a lot of hosted services are simply a published app on a VM or an RDP session - you're still not using your web-browser and it isn't a browser based app. Tinkertool is the most useful cloud based, web-based app I use on a regular basis - and it is still limited compared to what I could do with a native 3D modeling program. 

They're all just different methods of making your computer do something useful. I think the more abstractions you put between execution and bare metal, the less potential the application experience has. This is why FPGA retro-gaming feels intangibly better than emulating the same system on the most powerful i9 based Nvidia GPU driven gaming system available. Browser based cloud apps are the worst. There is SO much abstraction going on between the application and your actual hardware. It is basically brute force computing - you're forcing all that distributed abstraction through machines that are fast enough to deal with it and still deliver a sufficiently power and fast experience. It is cool that we have enough power end to end to make that possible and practical today - but brass tacks - any application that can run in the cloud - will have significant advantages running closer to your bare metal. I don't think that will ever actually change. The advantages just become a moot point when the web-based, cloud-based app is good enough to meet your expectations. 

 


Wed Dec 09 2020 08:15:16 EST from nonservator @ Uncensored

I wouldn't mind doing everything through a browser if browsers and the Web hadn't gone down the same path of homogenous AIDS-infested feces.



 



[#] Wed Dec 09 2020 16:35:24 UTC from nonservator

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Indeed. That's also why I'll never fully Urbit until it can run on bare metal.



[#] Wed Dec 09 2020 20:29:15 UTC from ParanoidDelusions

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Interesting. I did not know about Urbit. I think it is similar to an idea I've kind of had bouncing around my head for a while.


"

Introduction

We think the internet can’t be saved. The way things are going, MEGACORP will always control our apps and services because we can no longer run them ourselves.

The only way out of this mess is with a completely new platform that’s owned and controlled by its users." 

 

I feel the same way about corporate control over the Internet and our devices and OSes as these guys. I think the solution is to leverage the ubiquitous density of WiFi APs in the dense suburban and metro areas in a sidenet of open-nodes. 


You would set it up so that each WiFi router was a relay point to its neighbor in a peer-to-peer ad hoc mesh - and you could route traffic either over the traditional corporate network or this side net. Basically, you would have to have an open trust with your neighbor, and they with theirs, all the way from one side of the city to the other, in every direction. With smart enough algorithms, you could share the total net bandwidth more efficiently - bypassing local outages. When you get to the fringes where population gets sparse - that is where this becomes a problem. Getting across the Wilds of Pennsylvania from New Jersey to North East Ohio is a challenge. 

These ideas need just the right catalyst from the Corporations and Government regulations to create a situation where people start seeking alternatives. At some point... the liabilities of solutions like these are outweighed by the liabilities of continuing to go along with the status quo. 

 

 

Wed Dec 09 2020 11:35:24 EST from nonservator @ Uncensored

Indeed. That's also why I'll never fully Urbit until it can run on bare metal.



 



[#] Thu Dec 10 2020 00:19:19 UTC from Ragnar Danneskjold

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You can running Office in the browser completely. But it's not 100% what's on the desktop. BUt I bet it would suffice for most people.

You can't do that with Creative Cloud.

[#] Thu Dec 10 2020 03:21:22 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

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I argued with Jack Wallen years ago that by the time that there was a
"Year of the Desktop" for Linux, Linux would be indistinguishable

I'm ok with that. In case you haven't noticed, the dichotomy between "Windows, crap but compatible with everything" and "Linux, reliable but hard to use and few apps" has shrunk massively in both directions.

As I've pointed out a number of times lately, using Windows on the desktop no longer feels like allowing yourself to be given just a small dose of lethal cancer. Microsoft has lost the battle for everything other than the desktop, and they don't care because every OS now runs on their cloud. You can run Windows desktop without getting into the "oh at this point it's just easier to run microsoft everything" slope. That just isn't a thing anymore.

My daily driver is running Linux, and it will remain that way for the foreseeable future, especially since I'm now running a couple of KVM instances on it ... including your favorite BBS :) It's just like the mid 1980s when BBS operators would share a machine between the BBS and their personal use by running TopView or DesqView. I really don't feel like I'm missing anything. Maybe once in a while I wish I could run a game or something. But most of the time I just go about my day and don't even think about the OS.

[#] Thu Dec 10 2020 06:37:39 UTC from ParanoidDelusions

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Yeah, Google Office - too. 

They're pretty good. But... Office isn't CGI animation, 3D print designing... you can play games on other people's computers too... But not cutting edge VR. 

When we have enough power that you can do that on the cloud - there will be something new, and better - that you can't do on the cloud, that you will be able to do on bare metal in your own home. 

It is just how the economy of it works. If you can do a thing on the cloud - there is some BETTER thing you can do locally. 

It may be more difficult to break that paradigm than Moore's law. 

 

Wed Dec 09 2020 19:19:19 EST from Ragnar Danneskjold @ Uncensored
You can running Office in the browser completely. But it's not 100% what's on the desktop. BUt I bet it would suffice for most people.

You can't do that with Creative Cloud.

 



[#] Thu Dec 10 2020 06:39:57 UTC from ParanoidDelusions

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My *favorite* BBS runs on an Optiplex 3020... but also on Linux. :) 

My daily driver is a Microsoft Surface Pro 5. But I've got Macs, Linux... hell, Mac Classic, Amiga OS... I use a half dozen different platforms on a typical day. 

I like 'em all for what they're good at, and hate them all for what they're bad at. :) 

 

Wed Dec 09 2020 22:21:22 EST from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored
I argued with Jack Wallen years ago that by the time that there was a
"Year of the Desktop" for Linux, Linux would be indistinguishable

I'm ok with that. In case you haven't noticed, the dichotomy between "Windows, crap but compatible with everything" and "Linux, reliable but hard to use and few apps" has shrunk massively in both directions.


My daily driver is running Linux, and it will remain that way for the foreseeable future, especially since I'm now running a couple of KVM instances on it ... including your favorite BBS :) 

 



[#] Thu Dec 10 2020 12:25:36 UTC from nonservator

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I was running my Urbit in the earlier days when it was still all command line. Now that they're working on funky browser interfaces that require Javascript, I'm not so enamored. But I own a good chunk of virtual real estate there, so it's something to hold on to.



[#] Fri Dec 11 2020 17:19:00 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

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Hmm. Urbit looks like a million other projects that have attempted to do the same thing. When one of them takes off I'll hop on board.

[#] Sun Dec 13 2020 20:44:52 UTC from Nurb432

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Never heard of it before either, first thing i see:

 

 I think ill stick with i2p or tor ( or at the least, zeronet ). Freenet was there before them all and well vetted, but still seems underutilized, and fairly unknown on the 'outside'.



[#] Sun Dec 13 2020 20:49:00 UTC from Nurb432

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Should have went with a BSD. they are far more 'structured' than the mess Linux always has been.. 

And no, Plan9 cant save us, but 9Front? Its still kicking...

Tue Dec 08 2020 11:46:48 EST from nonservator @ Uncensored

I started using Linux as my primary desktop when it made me want to murder its creators less than the alternatives. A couple years ago, I went back to Win 7 as my primary while keeping Linux around as a secondary.  Everything continues to become a homogenous paste of dreck and goop. No Haiku, no Plan 9, no Urbit will save us.



 



[#] Mon Dec 14 2020 01:12:23 UTC from ParanoidDelusions

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The "Should have went with," thing always turned me off. 

I eventually tried them all, even weird shit like Mint. Every one of them had a deal breaker, and always drove me back to Debian. Debian was the first *nix I "got". It isn't perfect (of course it isn't, it is Linux... a misfit OS for misfit users, admins, engineers and developers...) but it is the one I have the best luck with. I got pretty good with Solaris and CDE when I had a SPARC, too. 
Isn't OS X basically BSD? I really do *nothing* in the *nix on OS X. Other than SSH into a real *nix to do actual *nix things. 


Sun Dec 13 2020 15:49:00 EST from Nurb432 @ Uncensored

Should have went with a BSD. they are far more 'structured' than the mess Linux always has been.. 

And no, Plan9 cant save us, but 9Front? Its still kicking...

 
 

 



 



[#] Mon Dec 14 2020 15:22:11 UTC from Nurb432

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BSD isn't Linux. Its a different kernel, and way of 'doing business'.  It also predates Linux by many years, and its roots come right out of Bell Labs. There were of course similarities due to Linux trying to adhere to some of the UNIX standards, but that has changed over time too. Even more of a difference. Both do share apps, but as Linux diverges more from from the philosophy of UNIX and keep creating their own custom extensions ( like systemD ), that will be come harder and harder i bet. Linux came from the minix world, in effect. That is where Linus learned things. I  cant say why it took off and BSD still stayed in the shadows, mostly commercial use or real UNIX users. Perhaps it was timing and more personal marketing. I donno.

OSX isn't BSD.  Its a custom proprietary kernel, based on Mach, and was written by the NeXT team and Steve Jobs brought it with him when he came back to Apple.  It does take some BSD user-land stuff and tack it on, and of course tons of proprietary pieces, which makes it a non-UNIX to most people.  Its also sort of lost its way over the decades. 

 

Debian, red hat, Slackware are the only distributions that have survived the test of time in the Linux world. Debian has until recently been the most 'standard' and they avoided crap that RH has been doing to make them different. Of course when you talk about all the 'based on' distributions, it becomes a stupid un-needed mess. Just take Debian and dd on what they offer, then you are still 'standard'. Other than not having to choose your packages, they really offer very little value add.

 

BSD, far more organized. only really 3 major systems.  FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD each do have something different to bring to the table. There are a few 'forks' to make it easier, but same rule applies here, why bother with someone else setup? Just make your own.

 

"should have" is not meant to be a put off. Its like telling your buddy "should have got an extended bed truck, for the work you are doing, as it would have worked our better than that fancy step side "



[#] Mon Dec 14 2020 20:21:25 UTC from nonservator

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Have used BSD. Was not the answer.

 

According to the email notice, that should be the last time Urbit breaches, and if they have to do it again, they now have tools to make the process less painful.



[#] Mon Dec 14 2020 22:49:51 UTC from ParanoidDelusions

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To anyone on the outside, they're all *nix. Only people on the inside argue over the trivial differences between the various *nix variants, and if they're Linux, Unix, or something else entirely. 




[#] Tue Dec 15 2020 12:26:46 UTC from Nurb432

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Perhaps you asked the wrong question :) 

Mon Dec 14 2020 15:21:25 EST from nonservator @ Uncensored

Have used BSD. Was not the answer.

 

 



[#] Tue Dec 15 2020 12:35:59 UTC from Nurb432

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Personally, i dont consider them trivial. There are fundamental differences in how they operate mechanically, their larger ecosystems, and communities that surround them. 

Would be like "I wanted a 4 legged furry pet, and i looked at a bunch of dogs, but never a cat since they are all the same thing anyway" I firmly believe that at least understanding they are not the same is important when one shops around. Perhaps the average Joe doesn't need to understand all the details when shopping, just that they are different animals. Tho, i would ague that an educated shopper makes better choices.

 

Mon Dec 14 2020 17:49:51 EST from ParanoidDelusions @ Uncensored

To anyone on the outside, they're all *nix. Only people on the inside argue over the trivial differences between the various *nix variants, and if they're Linux, Unix, or something else entirely. 

 



[#] Wed Dec 16 2020 01:15:58 UTC from ParanoidDelusions

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I think they're not trivial differences to the people who fundamentally *care* about the differences - but that is a minority of the population. 

Ubuntu has become such a successful distro by basically understanding this, I think. 

They've also eroded the quality of the Linux user base in the process - to where a lot of the questions I see Linux users asking now are not much different than the questions you see OS X or Windows users asking, in composition, understanding, or comprehension. 

Which really is the ultimate answer of "when will there be a "Year of the Linux Desktop"? 

When Linux has been made as accessible to the mainstream user as the other dominant OS platforms. 

From the perspective of folks like you - this isn't a good thing. It is like Metallica appealing to mainstream audiences for the dedicated hardcore speed metalhead. It is like Van Halen becoming Van Hagar and suddenly being a band that even the jocks like. 

Popularity comes at a price. It brings all the things that were those reason you liked that thing before it was cool. 

 

 

Tue Dec 15 2020 07:35:59 EST from Nurb432 @ Uncensored

Personally, i dont consider them trivial. There are fundamental differences in how they operate mechanically, their larger ecosystems, and communities that surround them. 

Would be like "I wanted a 4 legged furry pet, and i looked at a bunch of dogs, but never a cat since they are all the same thing anyway" I firmly believe that at least understanding they are not the same is important when one shops around. Perhaps the average Joe doesn't need to understand all the details when shopping, just that they are different animals. Tho, i would ague that an educated shopper makes better choices.

 

Mon Dec 14 2020 17:49:51 EST from ParanoidDelusions @ Uncensored

To anyone on the outside, they're all *nix. Only people on the inside argue over the trivial differences between the various *nix variants, and if they're Linux, Unix, or something else entirely. 

 



 



[#] Wed Dec 16 2020 15:00:40 UTC from Nurb432

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It was never about being cool, for me at least.  It was that unix offered a coherent system without the stupidness of something like windows or os/2.  The philosophy was vastly different, and translated directly into how he system was designed. I also grew up as a bell-baby, so unix was not some strange foreign language.  Its also why i gravitated to commercial OSs like TOS, when it was still viable.

Being popular by itself isn't a bad thing, as more visibility often means more support so more coders will be contributing. But i agree there is a cost, as it brings on political baggage that we dont want ( like you have seen happen with redhat over the years ). Popularity also means you have potential to have more drivers and such, which as we all know is not trivial. Writing drivers suck, even worse when you dont get vendor support. its all a trade off, but im not against being mainstream, it in principle.

If you want to look at the 'cost of not being popular' look at Plan9 ( 9Front ) a much better architecture, but no one knows about it, so we often struggle with the basics..  "hey, look at this, i managed to write drivers for a 10 year old WiFi card go me!"  ( ok not quite that bad, but you get the point ) 

I think the 'year of Linux' came a long time ago when android devices ended up in the hands of billions of people, and no one noticed.   The year of the desktop, wont happen as long as Microsoft has a stranglehold on business desktops. People will tend to use wat they have at work, even if they know about the alternatives. As we move more and more to web apps, their dominance may slip, on the desktop at least, but who knows the future. I know i dont. 

Of course being an engineer since birth and actually working on OS code personally in the 80s, i fully admit my viewpoints are all skewed. And with operating system, and from that angle, not a 'click and drool' end user that only cares if their latest angry bird game is there or they can watch a cat video, or that Facebook works.

No i dont have a beer gut, wear suspenders, and have a long beard, but i would fit in with that crowd, i'm just as grumpy :) And my lawn, stay off it. heh

 



[#] Wed Dec 16 2020 17:39:05 UTC from ParanoidDelusions

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No i dont have a beer gut, wear suspenders, and have a long beard, but i would fit in with that crowd, i'm just as grumpy :) And my lawn, stay off it. heh

A dying breed - I miss those guys. 

 

I agree with everything you've said here. Amiga OS/Workbench was a fundamentally better OS that was way ahead of everything else at the time. It never became popular enough to matter. And - it isn't JUST about being cool (although for a LOT of Linux users - I think the antidisestablishmentarian aspect of Linux is a huge part of the appeal. "I hate WinTel so much I only use AMD, ATI and Linux, which makes life a living hell in many ways - but I suffer this gladly in protest of the evil that is WinTel!" They tend to be predictable in that if something is popular and successful  and established - they think it is for idiots, sheeple and blue-pills.) Linux can be the "moody goth alt-scene" of the Cooler-than-Thou computer-nerd kingdom. 

I mean - there is absolutely branding influence in OS platform choice among consumers. We've all seen the "what this group thinks, what this group thinks, what this group thinks," memes illustrating how each group perceives themselves and the other group - and they're funny because we know there is a strong element of truth to them. 

But it isn't JUST that, of course. Garbage is still garbage, and quality is still quality. With music, with cars, with technology - with anything. 

 

 

Wed Dec 16 2020 10:00:40 EST from Nurb432 @ Uncensored

It was never about being cool, for me at least.  It was that unix offered a coherent system without the stupidness of something like windows or os/2.  The philosophy was vastly different, and translated directly into how he system was designed. I also grew up as a bell-baby, so unix was not some strange foreign language.  Its also why i gravitated to commercial OSs like TOS, when it was still viable.

Being popular by itself isn't a bad thing, as more visibility often means more support so more coders will be contributing. But i agree there is a cost, as it brings on political baggage that we dont want ( like you have seen happen with redhat over the years ). Popularity also means you have potential to have more drivers and such, which as we all know is not trivial. Writing drivers suck, even worse when you dont get vendor support. its all a trade off, but im not against being mainstream, it in principle.

If you want to look at the 'cost of not being popular' look at Plan9 ( 9Front ) a much better architecture, but no one knows about it, so we often struggle with the basics..  "hey, look at this, i managed to write drivers for a 10 year old WiFi card go me!"  ( ok not quite that bad, but you get the point ) 

I think the 'year of Linux' came a long time ago when android devices ended up in the hands of billions of people, and no one noticed.   The year of the desktop, wont happen as long as Microsoft has a stranglehold on business desktops. People will tend to use wat they have at work, even if they know about the alternatives. As we move more and more to web apps, their dominance may slip, on the desktop at least, but who knows the future. I know i dont. 

Of course being an engineer since birth and actually working on OS code personally in the 80s, i fully admit my viewpoints are all skewed. And with operating system, and from that angle, not a 'click and drool' end user that only cares if their latest angry bird game is there or they can watch a cat video, or that Facebook works.

No i dont have a beer gut, wear suspenders, and have a long beard, but i would fit in with that crowd, i'm just as grumpy :) And my lawn, stay off it. heh

 



 



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