My little sister has two, and most of her friends do too. It’s weird.

I suppose that makes sense. Support has gotten much stronger, in the last decade or two, for using multiple monitors.

I would welcome a utility that makes it easy to find donate links for my software packages, based on my Apt, Flatpak, and F-Droid package lists.

I had not heard of Trinity Desktop. That does look like a much simpler path to beautiful Windows XP stylings.

Apparently, many people want to make Linux look like Windows 95?

I’m a developer, so my chances are pretty good. But I take your point.

Even if I weren’t, there’s enough software options out there that I don’t have to pick between paying for proprietary software and living with abandonware.

So I think the need for this security is exaggerated.

Of course. I used proprietary software for a long time. Having things I relied on get abandoned got old, but it worked.

I just expect more from most of my software, now.

I’m happy to pay for software, but I want more than just permission, I want long term security that my investment in the tool will last.

If IntelliJ would open source their oldest versions, I would make my boss buy me a copy of the newest version every year.

I’d say Linux is somewhere around early Windows XP when it comes to usability for a normal person.

I was confused until it struck me that maybe you don’t consider Windows XP the peak of operating system user interface design.

I’ll admit, Vista really messed with my perspective.

That’s why we got together and agreed on one version of Linux to recommend to new adopters.

Even technical folks aren’t huge fans of RTFM.

If I’m doing something incredibly interesting, and I’m asking for help, I should RTFM.

If I’m doing something routine, we can (and usually do, now), make it simple enough not to need a manual.

Oof. Sorry you had such a bad experience.

Pro tip for others: It takes time for volunteers to reverse engineer new proprietary laptop hardware.

If the laptop manufacturers aren’t advertising Linux support, it’s up to the community to play guess and check, to figure out what the proprietary drivers do.

You might get lucky and pick the same exact model as a passionate reverse engineer. Or you might not.

With old stuff, your odds are much better that someone has figured it out for you.

For new hardware, it’s still essential to pick a vendor that chooses to write and release Linux drivers.

This will get better when truly open hardware platforms gain popularity.

And to every other bidder, too, of course.

I’ve never had any issues with any VSCode plugin failing in VSCodium.

But I’m not a PyLance user.

That you can have multiple terminal panes open to accomplish a small portion of the above?

Yes. Obviously. Two conclusions available to you are, either CLI developers are idiots, or they have tools you are unaware of.

The answer to “how can anyone work this way?” is out there, if you’re really interested.

People insisting on using the command line for everything is like a carpenter that only buys a circular saw and refuse to buy any other saws. Like yeah, you can do almost any cut with a circular saw, and it’s not a bad place to start, but theres a reason carpenters don’t limit themselves to a single type of tool.

You’ve just given the usual argument for learning Vim.

Having mastered both, my lack of patience for GUI tools is just that: impatience. I can use any tool, but I reach first for the fastest.

Everything you can do in VIM, you can do in VSCode running VIM in a terminal, but not the other way around.

You would sure think so, right?

But the VSCode plugin ecosystem still lacks some features available in the Vim ecosystem, and (fl just for example) LazyVim has most of the features available in VSCode.

At the end of the day, the biggest difference is speed. Even very brief unexpected delays can break my concentration. While VSCode is no slacker, it still has some delays, probably mainly because it’s still JavaScript under the hood.

Once there’s a GoLang, Rust or C port of VSCode, I may well switch permanently.

Is there a stable way to use closed (edit: intentionally DRM-ed) extensions (like the MS Python one) with vscodium by now?

Yes. Use this config edit.. Everything (edit: not written by assholes) works fine.

Edit: Damn. PyLance’s developers are up to some bullshit. I would take a hard look at who I’m accepting free candy from, if I used it.

That’s really smart. That way if I ever figure out the command to exit Vim, it’ll behave the same as my current method (powering off the PC.)

I can explain this chart: SO and AI both give me questionably useful example code, but AI isn’t as much of an asshole about it as the average SO user.

The issues should be central, but it would be nice for my reputation as a contributor to migrate between instances.

This means that using most Linux apps are something to be avoided for most Windows users, making the OS base mostly unusable for them.

I take your point. And this was very much the case for a long time.

But it’s worth pointing out that Gnome and KDE are both done, now.

I haven’t been forced to reach for command line to change something - anything - on either of my last couple of Linux installs.

Edit: I almost didn’t notice, but it feels worth celebrating and raising awareness.