It is no secret that I am an avid Apple user. I have been using a Mac in some fashion as my primary computer since 2016. I have had a 13″ M2 MacBook Pro since 2022, and recently got an 27-inch Intel-based iMac from my best friend’s parents. I have no plans of leaving the “Mac World” anytime soon. The iPhone world, maybe, but not the Mac. I live in Final Cut Pro and Compressor, I breathe in Safari, I pour my brain out into Notes. This has been my world for 8 years now. It’s hard to break that sort of cycle.

Now, I’m no stranger to Linux — Ubuntu 8.04 was what I learned how to use a computer on. That’s why Macs feel so natural to me; they feel very similar in the ease-of-use and performance departments. Windows is neither of those things. The only reason anyone uses Windows is application support, primarily gamers. (And for gamers, that’s really because kernel level anti-cheat exists, frankly. If developers embraced less insecure anti-cheat solutions, we would not be in this mess.)

Windows hasn’t been a good performer since Windows 7. It has been infested with ads since Windows 8/8.1, only getting worse with 10 and especially 11. Even with Windows 10 about to lose support next October, nobody’s rushing to upgrade to the latest release. In fact, Windows 11’s market share just fell AGAIN, losing an entire percentage point on the global Statscounter. I recognize that may not sound like a lot, but remember there are hundreds of millions of Windows computers out there. This isn’t insignificant!

The tests I ran were not really scientific so take it with a grain of salt, but: even on a decked-out Lenovo Ideapad 3 Gaming (2021 model), everything upgraded to the maximum it can possibly go with all new SSDs, the computer performs miles better under Pop!_OS (Linux) than it ever did under Windows 11. Windows 10 seems to perform somewhat better than 11, but not nearly as good as Pop!_OS did.

Because I use that computer for games, compatibility with my Steam library becomes a giant question mark. Even if they are compatible, most have some sort of configuration I need to do. And games like Mass Effect: Legendary Edition or Fallout: New Vegas become even more of a question mark, because I’m not even sure I can run their mods or even their respective launchers!

So, even though I’m feeling “done,” I’m not sure I can leave just yet. At least not until I can figure out the answers to the questions I have in regards to the games I play. Until then, I’m just going to rip out telemetry, continue using an Enterprise release with minimal bloat, and hope for the best…

The post I’m feeling done with Windows again appeared first on Slade Watkins.

Where did these go, System76? It took me, an enthusiast user, five minutes to find where you’ve shoved the updates tab. Something I needed almost immediately because ISOs aren’t up-to-date copies of an operating system took me forever to find.

It’s fine, of course, but it could be so much better if there was a clear place to go for updates again. Just one button to push and get everything.

In my experience: Pop!_Shop isn’t great about automatically updating packages, or the kernel, when updates are available so manual updates are still necessary. System76, please make improvements to the Pop!_Shop. It’s a great piece of software and it deserves to become even better!

The post Why on Earth Does the Pop!_Shop Hide Updates? appeared first on Slade Watkins.

This decision from the company has already resulted in tangible performance hits in my workflow, to the point where my M2 MacBook Pro has become the better option to get things done. I’ve leaned more on a Linux VM inside of macOS than my Windows computer directly, or even the Windows VM I have. Granted, I have a bias due to growing up on Linux (thanks Papa) but it’s still rather depressing, considering I used Windows for years after I moved out of my grandfather’s house.

Now, I’m no stranger to having wanted this switch before. I linked that blog post there. But I decided to do this “last year” and never actually followed through due to various program compatibility issues. Now, at least according to some threads I’ve found on Reddit along with constant (and massive) improvements to Valve’s Proton compatibility layer, I think I actually have a real shot at making the leap. So I’m going to.

Today, my only big question mark will be games. But Proton has become so good that I think I can (probably) find a way to make it work for me. I’m really bummed that it has come to this. Uprooting and returning to Linux isn’t something I thought I’d be able to do. Linux and games have never been synonymous.

To make everything easier, I’ll be adopting Pop!_OS by System76 across the board. I grew up on Ubuntu, so its base is familiar, and the out-of-box support for hybrid graphics is something I need for a couple PCs around here. Plus, it’s made by a company whose mission I firmly believe in, with staff who truly care about the open-source community, AND their users.

I’ll keep you posted!

The post Goodbye Windows, For Real This Time appeared first on Slade Watkins.

The biggest reason is that developers are going to stop trusting them soon enough. Frankly, Apple is becoming the very thing they sought to destroy almost forty some-odd years ago. The fact that they’re becoming more and more litigious is enough evidence, to be honest.

The company is simply on a power trip, fueled by a hunger for control and dominance over every industry in which they take part, even if that means costing themselves a significant amount of goodwill among their vast community of developers and enthusiasts. At least Microsoft’s former CEO Steve Ballmer understood that developers mean everything to a thriving platform. That said, Ballmer was controversial as a CEO, and most of that reputation is his own fault.

Every move the company has made, from RCS support and beyond (especially recently), has been done in a way that is nothing short of malicious compliance. Developers from across the industry, including several third-party developer alums, have come together and spoken out against these moves. Whether it’s independently, or through the Coalition for App Fairness, or through some other alliance.

Spotify, for example, is a member of the Coalition whose CEO was incredibly vocal against the proposed DMA rules set forth by Apple. They released another letter to the European Commission on Apple’s “lack of DMA compliance” just last week. Apple responded, with an incredibly anger-filled press release on Monday:

“Today, Spotify has a 56 percent share of Europe’s music streaming market — more than double their closest competitor’s — and pays Apple nothing for the services that have helped make them one of the most recognizable brands in the world. A large part of their success is due to the App Store, along with all the tools and technology that Spotify uses to build, update, and share their app with Apple users around the world.”

Keep in mind, the EU recently fined them €1.84 billion EURO ($2 billion USD) as a result of the anti-trust litigation between them, Spotify, and this is just a result of their distaste in their loss. The fact of the matter is–the Apple beast has become too powerful. We, the consumers, have given them this power–and we’re the only ones who can seize it once more.

Google isn’t exactly a saint either, to be clear. They’ve had their own myriad of bullshit and muddy bodies of antitrust and litigation of all sorts that would take ages to wade through. However–Android has, and will continue to be, an open platform in both source and user choice for as long as the Android Open Source Project exists and smartphone manufacturers (who aren’t Apple) continue making phones.

For Apple to succeed in interfacing with developers in the long-term–beyond their evangelists and most dedicated users who have zero understanding of how Android, Windows, or Linux works–they must stop alienating them and being so disrespectful when given constructive feedback. I’m not sure why their knee-jerk reaction is to play the victim card so much, especially when I’m sure they have a million other cards to play, but they continue to choose it.

For sympathy? Probably.

I believe it’s time for us iOS users to rebel in the only way Apple has given us the ability to do: take our business elsewhere. The grass is certainly greener on the other side of the wall. Even DHH, a well-known lover AND critic of Apple (being an Apple evangelist for a long ass time–perhaps 99% of my life–will do that), has switched to Android and Windows and has no reason to leave for a while.

Wild that we’ve gotten here. I’m doing the same thing, too–plotting my course out of the “ecosystem.” Perhaps it is that time. If Apple has a sincere change of heart, sure, but I don’t think developers are going to stick around for long with their attitude lately. Without developers, a platform is nothing. Without COMPETITION, a developer is nothing. If Apple truly is seeking to destroy both, iOS may as well be deemed irrelevant now.

Unless you want to eventually be stuck without any third-party apps in the future… I’d start looking at your options and plotting your exit plan. Samsung Galaxy S is probably the closest choice, but Google Pixel has a great line, too. That’s my take.

The post It Might Be Time For Us to Break Free from Apple’s “Ecosystem” appeared first on Slade Watkins.

“I don’t want to see a single eventfs patch that doesn’t have a real
bug report associated with it. And the next time I see you copying VFS
functions (or any other core functions) without udnerstanding [sic] what the
f*ck [sic] they do, and why they do it, I’m going to put you in my
spam-filter for a week.

I’m done. I’m really *really* tired of having to look at eventfs garbage.”

You can read the original patch submission at this link, if you’re technically inclined enough to understand it. Truth is, I’m only sharing this as a Linklog because I haven’t seen Linus Torvalds this angry in a very long time. Swearing included.

The post Linus Torvalds Thinks That’s A Bad Idea, By The Way appeared first on Slade Watkins.

You can thank my grandfather for this, but the first operating system I ever used wasn’t Windows. It was actually Ubuntu 8.04, code-named “Hardy Haron” and released in April of 2008. Well, the 16th anniversary of its third Alpha release was on the 10th of January, 2024, and I wanted to mark the occasion with some sort of post since it’s such a huge part of my story and why I love computers so much.

The operating system launched with GNOME 2 as its desktop environment, Firefox 3 for web browsing, OpenOffice 2.4 for its office suite, Transmission for torrenting, and–perhaps most notably–system sounded routed through the (at the time somewhat new) PulseAudio subsystem.

Since Ubuntu 8.04’s release, Microsoft’s choke-hold on PC operating system market share has only grown. In fact, according to GlobalStats, Microsoft Windows holds around 72% of global desktop OS market share as of December 2023. For the same time period–Apple’s macOS (OS X) holds around 16.3%, and Linux holds around 3.8%. Windows’s marketshare is down around 3% (from around 75%) in December 2022, while macOS gained roughly 2% marketshare and Linux gained about 0.9%, give or take.

My best guess as to why macOS and Linux are gaining users? Microsoft’s bloatware and privacy-invasive practices. The fact of the matter is that Windows is considered by many in the tech industry to be spyware, and they’ll go out of their way not to use it. Microsoft made this worse with recent versions of Windows 10 and 11, which barely let you switch off any telemetry, and whose browser–Microsoft Edge–will steal your data from other browsers on your system, too. I have a whole blog post about how I feel about the company here.

I both miss (and don’t miss) how simple computers were back then, and I wish Linux-based operating systems started taking off much sooner than 2023. But now that there’s real competition in the space with Valve’s Proton compatibility layer, among other things, I’m excited to see Microsoft lose its foothold.

And hopefully, with some regulation, their privacy-invasive practices will cease. Maybe one day…

The post The First Operating System I Ever Entered “Alpha 3” Stage of Development Over 16 Years Ago appeared first on Slade Watkins.

It’s official–in an interview with Destination Linux, the CEO of Canonical, Mark Shuttleworth, it was revealed that the next release of Ubuntu, 24.04 (along with some unspecified older LTS versions), will be receiving 12 total years of support from the company. Some of that support will come from their free-for-personal-use Ubuntu Pro subscription, but it’s still cool to see.

It’s FOSS News did a great job at summarizing the interview, if you just want the highlights.

The post Ubuntu 24.04 Gets 12 Years of Long-Term Support appeared first on Slade Watkins.