Hacker News might be the most insufferable and childishly naive place on the internet.

I mean… how big really is the category of software tasks that you can’t properly do on Linux in 2024? I feel like it is getting to the point where you do genuinely have to be specific about what Linux can’t do that is a dealbreaker for you rather than just falling back on “Linux can’t do what people need to do” as a general criticism of it.

Windows can’t do what people need it to do, and it fails to do so while sucking up your private data (which if you work at a business with confidential information IS a dealbreaker). At least when Linux fails it usually isn’t simultaneously violating the IT security structure of your organization….

The funny thing is businesses and government entities can’t even claim with a straight face that they can trust Microsoft to adhere to the meager insufficient data privacy laws that do exist when there is zero evidence Microsoft would behave that way based on the track record even if the financial penalties for failing to do so were actually real to the ruling class and not just theoretical thought experiments that involve a slap on the wrist or more like a light tickling with a feather on the nose.

But it will die down. People will just accept it. They always do. They always will.

I understand the frustration and cynicism that comes from wanting something to happen and waiting a good stretch of your life for it to do so but I am sorry, this is not reflective of reality.

Don’t mistake your own fatigue for the behavior of people in general.

Support for software on Linux or Wine is now orders of magnitude more complete and functional than it was 5-10 years ago. There are fundamental changes going on, just because we operated in a paradigm that suffocated the possibility of Linux adoption in the past doesn’t mean that paradigm will continue indefinitely.

There is a difference between being permanently powerless and being powerless under a certain arrangement of forces and actors.

We are entering a period of the status quo being smashed for better or worse in almost every dimension of our lives, what was likely to happen in the past 20 years does not reliably predict what is likely to happen in the next 20 years.

There is actually a true opening for Linux here in a way there never has been.

It is okay to be the person that always recommends Linux, especially if you are a kind person with the patience to explain things to people in approachable terms (and you don’t just scream at people SOMEBODY ALREADY ASKED THIS QUESTION USE SEARCH whenever a newbie walks in the door and asks the obvious questions a newbie would ask).

Now is the time, Linux is pulled up out front waiting to pick us up (with bags packed) and Microsoft is loudly shitting the bed upstairs, NOW is the time to walk straight out the front door, jump in the car with Linux and never look back. We owe it to Microsoft’s long relationship with consumers to leave Microsoft sitting confused on the porcelain throne wondering why they were abandoned and where all the toilet paper is (we are the toilet paper in this metaphor).

Hi Keith it’s your Mom’s friend Charen (pronounced with a hard Ch) she met at a weird multi-level marketing candle scheme she didn’t realize she was getting trapped into a miserable full length evening advertisement for (I should remember, I hosted it!).

I barely know you but I just wanted to raise awareness for my community Facebook group Leopards4FacesInNeed that connects vulnerable third world children with Christian Leopards.

Also stop smoking pot Keith, it is a SIN and I think talking about it publicly here as a thinly veiled attempt to shame you in a totally out of context fashion is totally appropriate and it’s not like I am going to face any consequences so maybe just log out of facebook and stop checking it for years at a time so you don’t have to deal with people like me. Also have you talked to my son Kevin? I lost him to the terrible woke plague and he won’t talk to me unless I take off my maga hat and I’m afraid to since I think I can hear the sound of the good old days of America playing from within side the hat, it must be a sign from up above (you should hear the tiny angles sing my name) and even my love for my son can’t get in the way of those types of messages!

the portal straight to the depths of Facebook rendered into the raw flesh of reality screeches as it destabilizes and collapses shut 🚪 💥

The peaceful silence of the night resumes. 🐿️ 🌙 🦨 🦗 🦗 🦉 🌟 💤