Yeah, who the hell is out there SSHing into their web server “to update their blog” but needs to be talked down like a toddler to convince them to try out Linux? This is a mythical beast of an user that does not exist.

People that do these sorts of remote work via GUIs exist. But yes, the switch is likely pretty obvious to them. I for one used to do it with Minecraft server stuff, I had FileZilla; Dolphin pretty much replaced that instantly for me. MUCH later, scripts replaced Dolphin.

This is a massive dealbreaker for a whole bunch of people, for understandable reasons.

Is it though? They’d face the same issues switching to MacOS. There’s no point in lying that some of their favorite programs may not work. I still miss Paint.net though GIMP has grown on me a lot.

This is simultaneoulsy an over and understatement. You can very likely access your old Windows drives from Linux, but it’s janky enough that this piece of advice makes sense.

Nobody is going to leave their old Windows files on their OS drive AND install Linux unless their goal is to dual boot (and that’s clearly not who this is for).

The entire file system needs to be replaced in the process of installing Linux, so there’s no “somebody should find a better solution to this.” The only way to do it would be to relocate and resize partitions as files are copied … and that’s incredibly dangerous. Not to mention attempting to guess what files are important to the Windows user has a high probability to fail.

This advice is good. You should regularly copy stuff you care about to an external hard drive and ideally use a backup program anyways. SSDs don’t fail as fast as HDDs did, but it will happen someday (or very well could).

However, every single tutorial and guide you read will tell you to update all right at the top with the compulsive zeal of a puppy who has just smelled a hidden treat.

Yeah, I’ve never liked this as an argument for Linux. People should update software (at least when there’s a security related issue) … for the exact same reason they should ditch Windows 10. However, as you said “Having to explain to people that their perfectly working computer is actually not working despite all available evidence is a bit of an issue.”

Many people prefer to roll the dice with those issues.

Yeah, I think that’s probably for the best honestly.

Ahhh so leapp will simply become less relevant because a better upgrade mechanism will take over

Interesting … yeah it looks like Leapp can do some upgrades for Alma and possibly others as well (TIL). I’m not sure how well that upgrade process would compare / be supported vs Debian though.

What’s the image mode and ostree stuff? Is that required for RHEL and/or Alma going forward?

I think your issue should be with Reddit moderators not Ars.

ProPublica happily allows Ars to republish their stories by disclosing the source:

https://www.propublica.org/nerds/happy-birthday-creative-commons

Ars discloses the source compliantly:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/06/doge-used-flawed-ai-tool-to-munch-veterans-affairs-contracts/

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-doge-veterans-affairs-ai-contracts-health-care

ProPublica literally thanks Ars above for spreading their stories.

The Ars headline (with its subheading) also says a lot more. So it’s just … going to get more upvotes, it’s better bait.

As for the second article getting squashed… Again Reddit moderators.

This looks like a nonsensical conspiracy theory … ProPublica was not suppressed or harmed. Ars literally spread their exact story. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if more people read the story because they see “ArsTechnica” and assume good content (because Ars has a super nice website and regularly has really good journalism on it).

No that’s canonical

There are pros and cons to verbosity and to using many files vs one.

Cron needs a special tool to edit it because you can break a bunch of stuff trying to edit another, very easily, and by accident.

The commands themselves when I was first learning I found easier to remember than things like dmesg or /var/log/ … they all follow similar conventions and aren’t so chopped up short that you can’t guess what they do by looking at them.

Similar to how most people don’t prefer 3 letter variables in code … I’m glad we’ve largely moved on from 3 letter commands. Granted, if you use them a lot you should definitely make your own three letter aliases in your preferred shell scripting language.

I think systemd has moved desktop and server Linux towards being more BSD-like … and I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing.

Maybe we’ll end up needing an X11 -> Wayland sort of transition where there are protocols instead of “an implementation.”

However, I’ve yet to see systemd be meaningfully detrimental. Are distros a little less different? Yeah. Has it made my life easier when I need to go between distros? Also, yeah.

I think on some level, we’re just getting to a more mature Linux desktop and server … and as a result consolidating on stuff that really doesn’t have strong reasoning to be different.

TIL; though I moved my servers to Debian … having the ability to sanely upgrade without a reinstall is a major plus.

Yeah, I think I’m going to stick to my energizers … pretty much everything I use AA batteries for these days is a low draw device (door lock, smoke detector) or something like an emergency flash light, rechargeable batteries don’t make sense for either use case.

I have some old school nice rechargeable batteries as well with an external charger. Those were nice back in 2016 when my bose headphones I was using at the time used AAA batteries, but it’s been a long time since I’ve used those with any frequency.

That’s interesting; I find the git CLI pretty intuitive especially for basic use cases most people would need, but I’ve also used git for 15 years now.

git is genuinely one of the best tools ever created. It is an extremely simple idea with crazy effectiveness and a reasonable UX that is a bit off putting at first but makes a lot of sense later on.

That said, I’d genuinely be curious what you think jj has improved upon git.

Nice find!

Yeah, that’s not terrible advice.

I think I’m just a bit … demoralized about that … since I do know a lot of older folks (I literally shoveled the driveways of 4 older neighbors this winter and have various 50+ friends) and no help has come from that direction…

I might give it a shot though, thanks

That is how inflation works… when costs go up prices go up.

Yeah, your computer probably should cost a lot more in “today dollars” but because performance of components gets more efficient over time, you can likely get a better computer for less money.

It’s the same reason you have a computer more powerful than multiple thousands of dollar super computers. The technology has improved enough you don’t have to pay as much.

Do you think prices should just be locked in place for eternity at $60?

I haven’t seen any good hiking groups in my area. The ones that exist on meetup.com are mostly “people with grey hairs” … and there’s nothing wrong with that other than I just turned 30 last month.

It’s been that way throughout my twenties.

I’d joined a “young professionals” group and was starting to meet some people that way but … it ended up dying out over the pandemic.

Sure, but that doesn’t mean the game developers don’t need to be paid. It’s still a bargain for the work that’s being done.

If you look at inflation adjusted pricing, it really is a deal. IIRC we should be at like 90 or 100+ dollar games at this point.

Yeah, it looks like basic reasoning but it isn’t. These things are based on pattern recognition. “Assume all x are y, all z are y, are all z x?” is a known formulation … I’ve seen it a fair number of times in my life.

Recent development has added this whole “make it prompt itself about the question” phase to try and make things more accurate … but that also only works sometimes.

AI in LLM form is just a sick joke. It’s like watching a magic trick where half of people expect the magician to ACTUALLY levitate next year because … “they’re almost there!!”

Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, but I don’t see it…

I don’t buy the “it’s a neural network” argument. We don’t really understand consciousness or thinking … and consciousness is possibly a requirement for actual thinking.

Frankly, I don’t think thinking in humans is based anywhere near statical probabilities.

You can of course apply statistics and observe patterns and mimic them, but coorilation is not causation (and generally speaking, society is far too willing to accept coorilation).

Maybe everything reduces to “neural networks” in the same way LLM AI models them … but that seems like an exceptionally bold claim for humanity to make.