I agree. I used to stress a lot about whether i was on the best distro. At some point i ended up on Fedora. I like it. I'm not sure its better than any other distro but it's just the one i know how to use and configure and am comfortable with.
My sister-in-law is getting into IT and Linux (mostly to get into IT) and she was looking at me like a psychopath because of my workflow. I tried to make it clear that it was that way because... that's what I knew and I liked. Doesn't mean it has to be yours (with some exceptions, she'll have to become friendly with the terminal in IT). Thanks for this video, and now that I think about it I'm going to send some of your other videos to her. Thanks for doing what you do!
Great opening! I'm still not moved over to Linux. Always had hardware compatibility issues in the past that frustrated me. Learning from channels like Learn Linux TV, Yours, and others has helped me revive some old hardware, Complete SBC projects, & tinker with donated equipment. It's been a lot more fun as well, and that has encouraged me to transition more into the Linux ecosystem. Couldn't agree more with you!
I was walking around picking up my living room and literally stopped in my tracks and turned to the screen, mouth agape, when you got to iPad over Android tablet. You're really putting yourself out there with that one... I applaud your bravery. Also, I miss netbooks so bad 😭
It says a lot about our culture that we make meaningless consumer choices like Windows vs Mac vs Linux into questions of identity. Whatever works for you is what you should use in your daily life; it's as simple as that. Also, I've always wondered whether sudo is pronounced "sudu" or "sudo" (I've heard both).
I mean - neither is really wrong. However, I prefer "soodoo" because the command is (iirc) a shorthand for "substitute user do" so it makes sense that way to me.
First time viewer, wonderful video. I'm happy there is someone saying this. There are some objective considerations to make when choosing your tools, but how heavily you weigh those considerations and which ones are even relevant to you change from individual to individual. I recently got my girlfriend into Linux and in my fervor to get her acquainted with all of the tools I've come to know, and my reasons for choosing what I've chosen out of all that, she gets a bit overwhelmed and runs into issues that frustrate her in that she has trouble solving herself. She often feels like an imposter for not knowing everything I know despite that I'm a recent graduate and she's only half-way through her 4-year cs degree. It's good to have someone reinforce that different tools work for different people, and it's fine if she doesn't use everything I do. Anyways, great vid, really like your style. Reminds me a lot of Technology Connections, but just more for software stuff.
I just want to say that as a beginner to linux, it's a breath of fresh air finding your videos. I like how you celebrate all the different options rather than claim one distro is superior or that one way of doing things is the best. Thanks!
I learnt about this recently trying to look for "browsers" and "Os" and... weighing in all the pros and cons... and learning from other dissenting youtubers with the "typical" opinion, I've come to learn that when something specific is needed, you could use anything at your disposal and NOT make your own life much harder for no reason other than "sticking with your values". This is a great video! _This comment was typed on a KB8926 - I game on it too!_
All excellent points! However, I think the most interesting thing you said was that you're a cobol dev! I knew they were out there somewhere in the world maintaining critical legacy systems, but I've never actually encountered one in any way
I'm a nano user, and sometimes even Kate. I've always just used the tool I'm comfortable with and gets the job done, and it's worked out for me so far. I don't care at all what anyone thinks of my choices, and I'm not going to get in an argument over it. When I see people ask things like "I'm thinking about switching to X. Should I?", I'm always like "I don't know, man. Only you can answer that. Try it. If you like it, then use it. If you don't like it, then don't."
Hey Veronica, I just enjoy watching your videos. We have the same interests and the same model Gibson guitar. i too love looking at old tech and tinkering with it. I have an Apple iPad Pro that I just love. It's probably the best tech ever to have been invented. I'm also a Linux/Windows sys admin, etc., and you video is right on the money. The right tool for the right job I like to say. Thanks for posting the interesting videos!
I love this video so much. I often tell my friends that you shouldn’t have to tear something else down in order to prop your thing up and I feel your video is completely in line with that philosophy
I know this is going to be a gross comparison, but we all use different TP. It's whatever works for you. I watch your videos to learn and because I like your videos
You can always improve, always be better. Don't get complacent just because a random bro on the internet told you so. Always strive for better productivity in yourself and your tools.
Well OK then, because you asked so nicely. I just picked up a 5 year old ThinkPad x260 from ebay for ~$200. Its probably a little bigger than your old netbook but not by much, and Mint 21 worked on it out of the box. The only thing I'm having issues getting working properly (its half working) is the fingerprint reader but who needs those anyway. I've been really quite surprised by how much power this old tiny laptop has which is far more than I needed (and more than the netbook it has replaced).
This is just an awesome video! WELL DONE! As they say, "haters gonna hate". It's so nice and refreshing to see people rise up above the nonsense. Too many people like to hide behind their keyboard so they can say whatever they want. I implore anyone like that to say these things to someone's face -- chances are they won't. FTR, I"m a long-time Unix admin/architect, totally stoked when I downloaded the first Linux "distro" from Usenet, so I guess I'm a long-time Linux user (U.S.R?) as well. However, I am currently working on the latest (to me) of many iPads, iPhones, Macs galore and the Apple watch. Like you said, it's what works for me. Opinions are fine, but we all know the old saying :).
Super nice to know that you are a guitar player! It's great to hear for once a balanced, less "bro" content about Linux and tech. Your channel is super refreshing (BTW -no, don't use arch, Pop OS for the moment I'm a professional guitar player and Foss enthusiast. Would be very interested to know if you work with Foss musical software like Ardour, musescore or similar) I take a "lap dock" when touring, it's a great way to use messaging, email, social media and email without the drawbacks of a small tactile screen as the one in a cell phone. Also, via Termux, I could occasionally use Linux command and ssh into my machines. With a capable cell phone and some tweaks you can run some Linux distro on top of android without rooting the device. Also, you can use it with several devices ( it can serve as a secondary monitor for a laptop or desktop, for example), and, when you upgrade your phone, so does your "laptop".
I use whatever tool is needed to get the job done. I have to agree about the tablet space as I'm a iPad user as well because of the support model. Great Video as always. Thanks!
@Veronica Explains I came back to this video for specifically the ipad/netbook section. Have you considered the Star Labs Starlite? I briefly remember the netbook days (never had one myself) and this is pretty much what I remember them as form factor wise.
For the particular case of switching to vim, most editors have decent or excellent vim plugins that give you > 90% of what vim offers without leaving your current editor. This includes Emacs, IntelliJ, Sublime Text, VS Code, and no doubt many others. You can enable the plugin to try it out and disable the plugin if you try it and don't like it.
The thing is, when you first try vi-style editing, you'll hate it. It's only after a week or so, when you've edited some big hairy text file and realized how much longer what you just did would have taken you "the old way", that you start to appreciate it. Lots of people try Vim for a while and give up, going back to their comfort-zone editor. If that "while" using Vim is long enough, at some later time they'll think, "what I want to do would have been straightforward in Vim". A seed is planted in their minds... They try Vim again, get frustrated and rage-quit again, but the seed has grown a bit. The cycle continues a few more times until they eventually realise that nothing is perfect, but Vim is overall faster. (The famous StackOverflow reply, "Your Problem With Vim Is That You Don't Grok vi", will help a lot.) Why yes, this is from personal experience, how did you know? 🙂
Vim is great when you use it a lot. If your editor use is totally casual, then the acclimation phase may not be worth it. Nano is easy, but not incredibly powerful. Emacs will act pretty much however you like if you can figure out how to set it that way, but it's a bit heftier than the others. Jupp and joe are more powerful than nano, but still pretty easy to figure out.
I feel like a lot of people new in the field feel the need to defend their choices competitively, I tell myself a lot of us go through it when we're young or when they don't know enough to realize why others may make other choices. I out grew it a decade ago at this point. Hopefully this video helps more people outgrow the insufferable superiority thing.
I'm a tech lead and I develop Android, both applications and AOSP. I use an iPad as my personal tablet, and a Mac as my dev computer. Its what I'm happy with. (Don't forget that Linux uses a lot of GNU tools, as does BSD and Mac OS *IS* BSD. I use mac ports and GNU and open source all the time on my Mac.
Oh yes, I produced one of the earliest ARM Linux distros back in the 90s and I have a Linux dev laptops (both for work and home) but my go to machine is my Mac Book Pro.
This came up randomly in my feed and I had to sub within 2 minutes. This video speaks to my heart when people ask me for tech suggestions. "You use Windows? Does that mean I should swap to Windows when buying my new machine?" No stick with what you like and understand unless you are aiming for changing things up.
A couple years ago i worried a lot about all the newfangled and different tech stuff everyone would post on Twitter, and TH-cam. Really stressed me out. It's been SO much better since i said "fuck it i like MY setup." Also i just don't wanna learn new stuff if i don't have an explicit need to.
I am also all in on linux and FOSS software for my desktop (arch btw) and GrapheneOS on my pixel. But I still also use an iPad, it's great as a thin client for remoting into my work machine and using the apple pencil to take notes in meetings and such. I'm the type of person that has to physically write everything in order to retain information and I appreciate to have those handwritten notes stored digitally instead of in a million notebooks that clutter up the limited space I have in my small apartment. I'm a strong advocate for people using whatever works best for their needs!
5:37 Ooh! I have a suggestion! The GPD Win 4: - Is *smaller* than a netbook, being explicitly handheld, and is considered pocketable (though your pockets may vary) - Has a physical keyboard behind a Sidekick-style slide-out keyboard - Runs Linux smoothly (according to The Phawx) - Can be had with an LTE module - Runs a full fat AMD Zen3+ / RDNA2 APU - Is easy to take apart and repair - Costs maybe 1.5x the iPad
I like the idea of a GPD Win. The price is a lot more than I'm willing to spend for a device that's mostly for "oh no" system failures when I'm away from my desk for an extended period of time. The used market might be promising ground though for picking one of these up!
Good video! Not everything needs to be a tribal battle. Tangentially related, I still use my old eeepc 901 from time to time it's a great little machine and it checks all the right boxes for me.
I agree with all of your comments. I have all of the tablets and computers you have talked about and the best tool is the one that is the most efficient and comfortable for YOU, and not someone else. I started on nano, I Am trying emacs, and have move to vim. I moved when I was comfortable and felt the need for more. Well said Veronica . Linux Mom. My late mother was the Cobol Mom, she would have liked your vids. Thanks a bunch.
LOL yeah Turbo C++ is a totally a viable IDE. Seriously though, I was browsing an eBay seller's other listings when I was buying a vintage computer part off them, and saw a copy of 1978's _The C Programming Language_ by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie, so I picked it up too on a whim. It's been over a decade since I last did any programming at uni, so I thought it would be an interesting read, and maybe give me the push to get back into programming. So I installed Dosbox-X and Turbo C++ (you know, for the convenience of a modern programming language 😆), and it works just fine for following the examples in the book! I know there's more modern environments, certainly many free and/or open source options, but I'm not interested in making programs for modern computers, it would be to run in MS-DOS on vintage computers. And you know what? When I mentioned this to my friend who's a programmer, he gave me shit for it. But he just doesn't get that it's not about the end result, it's about the experience. That's really what the vintage computer hobby is about.
This is such a pet peeve of mine working in Cs academia. While there are some tools that can significantly streamline work (svn for collaborating on papers is hard to defend when there's git), there is a portion of (usually very young) academics that just can't believe you use x/y/z software, and won't stop telling you about it, even while seeing you succeed using your own tools. I wonder if it's a sense of insecurity in their "Cs credentials" sometimes that compels them, or if it is the relatively common "well, actually" character flaw that's very present in the field
Well actually... yes. It's a common character flaw in many of us nerds. We either get over it and wise up or keep doing it into our 30s and have people cringing at us.
There's so many different approaches and combinations on how to do just about anything - I love it when others share how they've done it so I can consider what's best for me and my use case. I am disheartened at how quickly knowledge forums compel some to troll. Oh, by the way, THANK YOU for not using click-bait verbage. Keeping the algorithm happy whilst creating content relevant to the title/description is a feat achieved by so few.. I appreciate what you do...
I used my discretion and honestly your opinions are totally forward moving and hold true to a lot of things more than just linux. first time viewer and out of my regular streams of content, but ima subscribe to see what else you got
Knowing the internet, you probably get a lot of crap for being a Cobol developer. Personally I did Cobol early in my career, and the experience I got working with CICS transactions, and writing re-entrant code, served me quite well when I started to do web development. I think people should use what they like. I may tease someone about using notepad instead of a more advanced editor when writing code, but it just good-natured ribbing. They may then turn around and poke fun at me because I like to use maven instead of gradle. None of it is serious, and I like the fact that I'm working with people where we can poke fun at each other.
Wonderful video. I personally use apple as a phone, android as a tablet and windows for pc. I currently use XP 7 and 10. These items work for me not the other way around.
you probably already know this but there are multiple linux distros that support 32bit architectures (ive only seen debian-based ones but i imagine you wouldnt have an issue with that), the one i use is antixlinux and im pretty satisfied with it
I never had anything against arch linux itself, I just don't like snobbery and elitism. People who say "ubuntu is dead, use arch" fit that description perfectly. First off; nothing is ever dead until development ceases. And with open source projects, that almost never happens. It can easily fork into new ownership with a new name. Second off; there was an extremely long time when arch was not easy to install, which chases people away.
"Only a woman would choose nano" If I knew this way back when in 2012, I'd start transitioning much earlier! :D Religious wars suck. I didn't care about the whole Vim vs Emacs debacle and used nano, still do! Distro? I used Fedora (that was the workplace policy back then), I use Debian on my personal systems, I also sometimes use Mint and recommend it to regular users. Rock on, fellow nerd! :)
same, nano was my main editor from 2012 (when I started using linux) until recently (learnt vim because I love efficiency, ironically the year my egg cracked lol).
I love nano. It works fine for 99% of small edits. VIM is neat but I never use it to it's full extent because...I don't need to? So its like going to the store in an giant off-road truck.
its good and reassuring hear some reason nowadays. Thank you for your content and all the times it helped me get out of a dissociative crisis. It is so prejudicial to someone that is learning to get dragged into these nonsense arguments.
I would really recommend the Thinkpad Yoga series to you, about 3 years old devices can be found for about 500€, it's decently small at 13 inch, they usually come with LTE and while it is certainly not as compact as an iPad it really is a neat portable laptop.
Hi Veronica. Firstly, I totally agree with your keyboard choice, a minimal keyboard WITH the function and arrow keys is ABSOLUTELY the superior choice... for me... but not for everyone.... and that's fine :D Secondly, outro music is amazeballs. Obligatory personal distro and why I must be right generalisations: I use Manjaro with XFCE because of two main reasons, 1 - I like to rice my distro but I'm lazy, 2 - it was the first I tried after moving from Ubuntu after being burned by a big breaking (and broken) version change and it worked and as I said, I'm lazy... I've had a couple of people ask me what I use and would I recommend it and frankly I wouldn't recommend anything I do long term. Linux (for me) is about having a bit more control over your environment, so sure, play around and break it, but learn how you want your OS to work for you and try stuff till you work out how to get it to do that. Then come and tell me because I'm lazy and if I can have a low hanging fruit I'll take it. :D
Thank you very much for this video. I’m a technology enthusiast, and I see the same thing going on online, and it drives me bananas. I’m personally a Mac user, but I come on here to learn more about Linux, because you break it down in a really informative and easy to understand way. Because of you, because I want to play with it a little bit, I’ve actually installed in Ubuntu virtual machine so that I can mess with it on the side without screwing up my normal set up.
I'm just really happy to see a trackball person. Mouse people and touchpad people aren't bad - I just hate they're assumed to be the only ones to exist by every work place and laptop maker. Which trackball do you like best? I love my Kensington. I dont remember the model name, Ive had it forever. Its about the size of a billiard ball, with 4 buttons, and, my favorite part, the scroll ring! I agree on one's preferred distro not being for everyone. I use KDE but Gnome is such a close second for me, and I was on Gnome for a decade. A linux option for the ipad - Im personally considering a GPD Pocket 3. No LTE, but itll tether to a phone. I dont have one yet, so no idea if its as good as it looks. Tiny, with keyboard, has tablet mode.
Hey Veronica, about your small device recomendation, there is a small chineese laptop/console manufacturer called GPD, and some of their producs are like old netbooks, they are really powerfull too (as they are made for gamers). Sorry for sounding like an ad, but these devices hit your needs so well, AAAA thank you if you read this :3.
@5:50: "Hey hey why are we FIGHTING? Can't we all just agree to hate Snap??" Also "Persuasive-essay-as-lifestyle" pretty much hit me like a running-late freight train, thanks. XD
Nice video! I've switched to Linux around two weeks ago and totally agree. It's good, but have it's flaws. Just as everything does (btw, I have been using an old netbook - HP 2133 mini)
That's actually a really interesting thought - with all the power and size reductions we've gotten over the years, and getting rid of optical drives in laptops - why /haven't/ netbooks come back? Do they think people won't go for the smaller display? Or the smaller battery? Or is it that they can't get the price down? Maybe not questions you have answers to unless you have an inside line with someone who does laptop product development, but the technology is certainly there.
I guess I will offer my train of thought: I am guessing most buyers are actually gamers so as long as that's making them profit they don't really care about any other group unless it gets them more money Or even better for them is when groups they weren't aiming for buys their products, and since there isn't any other choice people simply continue buying(which lately seems to be very common since even normal work laptops have a pretty decent GPU, even integrated GPUs aren't that bad)
The intro sums up the 2020s wit too well. Edit: ever try slapping a dual boot onto a surface? A bit of a hit to battery life for a tablet that doubles as a fully functional laptop.
so many ppl need to hear this. people really do too much. my girlfriend is always bugging me to get an iphone (im a huge android nerd), but id never pretend like android would serve her better. same goes for tablets. im in the middle of switching from windows to arch or manjaro (will likely be a years long process as i learn the ropes and wait for proton to evolve) but id never for a second suggest most people do the same. aside from shady corporate ethics, i wish everyone in this space could just live and let live. there's a reason microsoft, apple, and google's products are so widely used. above ALL, tech needs to be accessible and serve the users' needs. X or Y linux distro or FOSS software just doesn't serve those needs just yet. do I think that free software should be the default taught in schools? of course, and maybe as a society we can become more technologically literate (and free) as a result. but hell, im a developer working for a bleeding-edge tech company and I wouldn't even recommend linux to most of my coworkers.
I remember an old AT&T video showcasing unix with Brian Kernighan in it. He pronounced it "user" in that video. If Professor K says it that way, I'm happy to do the same.
A great, considerate and very well-argued video. Based on the same logic: does your Mac run games that you enjoy and play often? If so, then Macs are good for gaming FOR YOU. My M1 Mac Mini is just fine for games such as Hades, Hollow Knight, Dead Cells, Carrion, INSIDE, SUPERHOT and plenty of adventure games, and I use my early Intel and PowerPC Macs to play older Mac games. :) Your observation on how aloof or exclusionary attitudes among Linux users may push others away from Linux reminds me of an Apple commercial from the mid-eighties. The "Lemmings" Macintosh Office commercial features snide narration and depicts blindfolded office-workers marching off a cliff. Unlike the inspirational 1984 Macintosh ad, many people found the Lemmings commercial insulting toward potential new customers.
Recently had a similar thought process of "tablet vs. small laptop" and ended up with a used ASUS E203MA laptop, which runs perfectly for me. It's a 11,6" laptop so maybe not small enough for some usescases but being passively cooled with the N5000 processor and 4gigs of ram it runs super snappy for text and browserbased applications. Interested to see how many years i can use it before webpages are programmed so inefficiently to render it useless ;D Other than that, big fan of the "use the tools you have" mindset and a fresh breeze of air in the whole looking-for-theobjectively-best and argueing over it without any reason online "eco"system. Keep it up!
Thanks for this. i don't really believe that most TH-camrs want to convince me that I should stop using any Distro or hardware and start using something else. How much convincing can you do in 10 or 20 min? I have a bunch of 6-7 yo, 32 bit junk hardware around. Linux makes sense. I am old enough that I live by "comfort over speed". I don't care what software or hardware you use. You speak plain enough to get my subscribe and bell.
I totally agree with your point... The perfect OS/software tool/text editor/console... even toilet paper! Is the one that fits and cover the main necessities of the user... I truly speak when I say that I love Unix based systems and my favorite is Ubuntu Linux, but MacOs actually fits better all my necessities in one. Also I'm not a huge fan of Windows but recently due to my work as a software engineer I had to migrate to a Windows PC and it was fine, I ended up getting up to speed so quick and getting the job done. So no matter what option is used, the key is how to take advantage of the usage for helping us to get things done easy, confortable and quick. I really loved your point. Great video!
As for software, it's pretty just use what you like. For me, the software I use is. Windows 11 Blender. Unreal Engine 4/5 Fl Studio. OBS ShareX Substance Painter. Marvelous Designer. Premier Pro. Photoshop. Scrivener for writing. Opera GX. (I make games, art, novels, etc.) All of these programs are their alternatives. I've tried them all and these are the ones I like the most. Some people will prefer the alternatives but, that's fine. Everyone is different. (PS. Just found this channel and you remind me of Technology Connections :D)
love my windows for gaming and office tools, love my linux for programming, and love my mac os for content creation (logic/finalcutpro). It's all good.
On the netbook front I use an old Thinkpad X201T. I love that the tablet version doubles as a tablet or a laptop and it is just a hair larger than the netbook. It runs just about any distro I throw on it and there are models that came with mobile support (not sure if it is LTE). You might be able to find a gently used one like I did for cheep. And great video. Alot of people get very touchy about their devices myself included sometimes if I am honest. I went from PPC Macs to Thinkpads with Linux for my home computers. I basically got into both because at the time I was spending 8 hours a day fixing hosed Windows machines and just didn't want to have anything to do with Windows and as I stuck with it Linux became more and more usable and there was less reasons to boot up anything else.
I used to use an ipad for years since the iPad 2 up to the iPad Air 3. Now i use a Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra. For me, it's the best tablet for my needs. For me, software freedom is about choice. Choose what you want to use and what works best for you.
I use RHEL 6/8 at work. I use iPhone,iPadPro, iPadMini, Raspberry Pi and Linux Mint on my Lenovo 12.5inch laptop, and a M1 Macbook Air. And I’m trying to set up a VM system on it. Love your videos. Especially the ones about older Technology. I remember deploying Wyse 100 terminals with AlphaMicro S-100 systems.
Perfectly agree, a good tool is the one which suits you and helps you do your work and has a workflow which you like most. And that's it. Many "zealots" don't understand that certain tools exists only on certain platforms and you ought to use them for certain tasks. I love linux based systems, free and open source software, for pragmatic reasons and for privacy reasons, but for my job I need Windows, and no there's no alternative in the free and open source world in my case. And so it is in many others.
GPD WIN Max 2 is the small netbook you dream on. It has LTE and modern CPU. Unfortunately it's a bit expensive. Also there are other models of small notebooks from GPD
This is really nice to hear, to be honest. I'm a Computer Engineer (at least I will be when I graduate in December, hopefully) and I've been dabbling in Linux for the last 9 months. I've really enjoyed it and some day I wanna run Linux on my main PC, but I want to go back to Windows for the moment. I'd been holding off because of the whole "Windows is the enemy" mindset of the Linux community and I didn't want to be judged for it. I know Windows (and Microsoft as a whole) is ethically questionable (and in my opinion getting worse by the day) but it's also what I know best.
There's really nothing wrong with that approach. I mean, I personally think Linux is the best Kernel out there. And I switched so many years ago that it's just my default- like Windows is for many. But I can hardly fault someone for going back to dry land after dipping a toe in the water. It's a lot to do, changing OSes! And as a student, it sounds like you're busy enough! It's true that some in the Linux community get pretty judgy, but I promise we aren't all like that. Good luck, and Linux will still be there if/when you're ready!
I agree with your comments fully, for every task there is tool that works solely for you. Others may criticise how you go about things, it’s always good to hear a different point of view and learn how to use a different toolset. You never know when you might need to use them. Some people get very tribal over their OS, I use them all from Apple][, iOS, Mac OS, PaRisc Linux and windows 10 and the amount crap I hear about how bad they all are on a daily basis drives me nuts. I decided to use them all to get the best of everything they do well. Now enough about OS what really matters is what programming language is best, now that does cause some arguments.
This was great and something everyone should hear. From the 'console' vs. 'pc' crowd, to the 'Linux' vs. 'the world' crowd. Just trying to figure out the best distro for you as a 'daily driver,' can lead down rabbit holes for literal hours. And it's mainly due to what you describe here. This whole "X distro is the best and all else is trash" narrative that people want to promote. You'll often find that for every opinion about any distro, there is an opposite opinion that sounds just as convincing. In the end, it all comes down to what best suits your needs.
I am with you 100 percent. Personally I am just too tired to give a hoot about some opinionated dingus online who scolds everybody and their dog for what tools they use, what computer they have, what TP they prefer or which type of booze they enjoy. It is just asinine and what I like to call a colossal WOMBAT: Waste Of Money, Brain And Time. If anyone yells at me that "Your XY is bad and you should feel bad", I lose interest immediately. Those people often try to make some hypothetical (or made-up) edge cases as well as their own preference and workflow the be-all, end-all, canon that everyone should base their decisions on. And that is just dumb. And annoying. As soon as the discourse reaches the "But sometimes....!" stage, it is time to book it out of there. People in general get WAY too hung up on tools.I have seen enough of this in other areas as well. For instance, I do photography as part of my job (you could call it corporate work I guess). And I cannot count the number of times some spec sheet jockey said to me "Wow, you work with THAT?! It is 5 years old, it does not have this encabulator and does not even come from Manufacturer X so how good can it possibly be?" Well...apparently good enough that material I shot gets published.
I agree and I go as far as saying that, when it comes to OSs, it's all about which one you like, not which one is the best tool for your use case. For 99% of use cases, you would be fine with Windows, Linux or MacOS. Especially when it comes to development. With WSL, you can do the same things you can on Linux and Mac OS. Android and iOS these days are basically the same in terms of all of the apps you can run. I use Windows 10 on my PC and Mac OS on my work laptop, I can legit use both OSs interchangeably. I think of moving to Linux sometimes because of privacy, but the only issue is that I like the Adobe suite. But if I wasn't lazy, I could use DaVinci resolve, Gimp and many other open source tools to do the same things I do on those OSs. I'm strictly talking about capabilities here, not security or privacy and stuff.
Goodness I appreciate videos that do not do the classic social media divisiveness approach. It’s OK to be fucking different !!!! (I love the fact that people ARE not all the same. If we were it would be like the link layer of networking)
Ref the usr directory, there is a video from AT&T featuring Brian Kernighan, and he says it "user". Given how intimate he was in the earliest days of unix with Ken Thompson, I'd say he has authority.
I carry an Asus E210M with me all the time. It's a Windows laptop that's around Netbook size with a good build quality and actually decent keyboard. It runs for a decent amount of time, at about 8-10 hours per charge. It doesn't have LTE integrated, but you can get a USB or WiFi puck device for that.
You haven't convinced me to accept the broad range of human preferences in the world and get on with my life.
That's actually funny 😆 ... and witty !
Switching off.
I’m out off by your lack of acceptance. I refuse to tolerate your opinion.
ONE SIZE FITS ALL! 😆
OMG a breath of fresh air! I'm a hard core Fedora user, but the best tool is always the one that works for you.
I agree. I used to stress a lot about whether i was on the best distro. At some point i ended up on Fedora. I like it. I'm not sure its better than any other distro but it's just the one i know how to use and configure and am comfortable with.
Totalmente de acuerdo. Sin embargo algunas personas parecen más usuario de "sistemas operativos" que de "aplicaciones" (lo cual es raro). Saludos!
You're so fu... right
Great Video and well said, currently i use endeavourOS but also loved POP OS, Fedora, Open Suse and numerous other Distro's, long live linux :)
I currently use Fedora but I have a big soft spot for Ubuntu, in spite of how angry everyone seems at them.
As the old saying goes, "As long as you know which end of the screwdriver to hammer on, you'll be fine."
Then theres that other saying; To a hammer everything is a nail.
I am personally partial to the saying "When you have a hammer, every problem starts to look like a screw."
You bring an interesting new flavor of videos in this tech-y linux area of youtube, and I much appreciate your work! Getting some merch eventually
Thank you so much!! :)
My sister-in-law is getting into IT and Linux (mostly to get into IT) and she was looking at me like a psychopath because of my workflow. I tried to make it clear that it was that way because... that's what I knew and I liked. Doesn't mean it has to be yours (with some exceptions, she'll have to become friendly with the terminal in IT).
Thanks for this video, and now that I think about it I'm going to send some of your other videos to her. Thanks for doing what you do!
Good luck to her, and thanks for sharing!!
Great opening! I'm still not moved over to Linux. Always had hardware compatibility issues in the past that frustrated me. Learning from channels like Learn Linux TV, Yours, and others has helped me revive some old hardware, Complete SBC projects, & tinker with donated equipment. It's been a lot more fun as well, and that has encouraged me to transition more into the Linux ecosystem. Couldn't agree more with you!
not trying to be the average Arch fan, but it was the only one that didn't have any compatibility issues on my laptop
Nothing wrong with using both. Each OS has its strengths.
I was walking around picking up my living room and literally stopped in my tracks and turned to the screen, mouth agape, when you got to iPad over Android tablet.
You're really putting yourself out there with that one... I applaud your bravery.
Also, I miss netbooks so bad 😭
It says a lot about our culture that we make meaningless consumer choices like Windows vs Mac vs Linux into questions of identity. Whatever works for you is what you should use in your daily life; it's as simple as that.
Also, I've always wondered whether sudo is pronounced "sudu" or "sudo" (I've heard both).
Some people use linux becsuse of philosophy, that's how it started.
I mean - neither is really wrong. However, I prefer "soodoo" because the command is (iirc) a shorthand for "substitute user do" so it makes sense that way to me.
First time viewer, wonderful video. I'm happy there is someone saying this. There are some objective considerations to make when choosing your tools, but how heavily you weigh those considerations and which ones are even relevant to you change from individual to individual. I recently got my girlfriend into Linux and in my fervor to get her acquainted with all of the tools I've come to know, and my reasons for choosing what I've chosen out of all that, she gets a bit overwhelmed and runs into issues that frustrate her in that she has trouble solving herself. She often feels like an imposter for not knowing everything I know despite that I'm a recent graduate and she's only half-way through her 4-year cs degree. It's good to have someone reinforce that different tools work for different people, and it's fine if she doesn't use everything I do.
Anyways, great vid, really like your style. Reminds me a lot of Technology Connections, but just more for software stuff.
I just want to say that as a beginner to linux, it's a breath of fresh air finding your videos. I like how you celebrate all the different options rather than claim one distro is superior or that one way of doing things is the best. Thanks!
I learnt about this recently trying to look for "browsers" and "Os" and... weighing in all the pros and cons... and learning from other dissenting youtubers with the "typical" opinion, I've come to learn that when something specific is needed, you could use anything at your disposal and NOT make your own life much harder for no reason other than "sticking with your values". This is a great video!
_This comment was typed on a KB8926 - I game on it too!_
All excellent points! However, I think the most interesting thing you said was that you're a cobol dev! I knew they were out there somewhere in the world maintaining critical legacy systems, but I've never actually encountered one in any way
I totally agree ... it usually comes down to individual tastes and your proficiency at managing the tools that you prefer/have to work with 👍
100% spot on! This needed to be said. In the linux community especially we can be our own worst enemy. Thank you for making this!
I'm a nano user, and sometimes even Kate. I've always just used the tool I'm comfortable with and gets the job done, and it's worked out for me so far. I don't care at all what anyone thinks of my choices, and I'm not going to get in an argument over it.
When I see people ask things like "I'm thinking about switching to X. Should I?", I'm always like "I don't know, man. Only you can answer that. Try it. If you like it, then use it. If you don't like it, then don't."
Takes sometime for people -including myself- to realize the truth about the tools. Thank you for sharing your insights.
Hey Veronica, I just enjoy watching your videos. We have the same interests and the same model Gibson guitar. i too love looking at old tech and tinkering with it. I have an Apple iPad Pro that I just love. It's probably the best tech ever to have been invented. I'm also a Linux/Windows sys admin, etc., and you video is right on the money. The right tool for the right job I like to say. Thanks for posting the interesting videos!
I love this video so much. I often tell my friends that you shouldn’t have to tear something else down in order to prop your thing up and I feel your video is completely in line with that philosophy
I know this is going to be a gross comparison, but we all use different TP. It's whatever works for you. I watch your videos to learn and because I like your videos
@@cat-le1hf toilet paper
Not all of us use TP (i do when possible, but I'm sure someone out there doesn't at all), but I agree with the general idea of what you are saying
@@eveypea that just further drives the point home honestly
You can always improve, always be better. Don't get complacent just because a random bro on the internet told you so. Always strive for better productivity in yourself and your tools.
Oh my god!! Why not find this lovely channel earlier!? [SUBSCRIBED]!
Well OK then, because you asked so nicely. I just picked up a 5 year old ThinkPad x260 from ebay for ~$200. Its probably a little bigger than your old netbook but not by much, and Mint 21 worked on it out of the box. The only thing I'm having issues getting working properly (its half working) is the fingerprint reader but who needs those anyway. I've been really quite surprised by how much power this old tiny laptop has which is far more than I needed (and more than the netbook it has replaced).
It's tool fetishism, and it's generally a waste of time. Thanks for covering this topic!
Spot on! I believe tribalism will keep Linux from growing its share of the desktop space.
And still, KDE is best.
(just kidding, everyone should use what works for them)
This is just an awesome video! WELL DONE! As they say, "haters gonna hate". It's so nice and refreshing to see people rise up above the nonsense. Too many people like to hide behind their keyboard so they can say whatever they want. I implore anyone like that to say these things to someone's face -- chances are they won't. FTR, I"m a long-time Unix admin/architect, totally stoked when I downloaded the first Linux "distro" from Usenet, so I guess I'm a long-time Linux user (U.S.R?) as well. However, I am currently working on the latest (to me) of many iPads, iPhones, Macs galore and the Apple watch. Like you said, it's what works for me. Opinions are fine, but we all know the old saying :).
Super nice to know that you are a guitar player!
It's great to hear for once a balanced, less "bro" content about Linux and tech. Your channel is super refreshing
(BTW -no, don't use arch, Pop OS for the moment I'm a professional guitar player and Foss enthusiast. Would be very interested to know if you work with Foss musical software like Ardour, musescore or similar)
I take a "lap dock" when touring, it's a great way to use messaging, email, social media and email without the drawbacks of a small tactile screen as the one in a cell phone. Also, via Termux, I could occasionally use Linux command and ssh into my machines. With a capable cell phone and some tweaks you can run some Linux distro on top of android without rooting the device.
Also, you can use it with several devices ( it can serve as a secondary monitor for a laptop or desktop, for example), and, when you upgrade your phone, so does your "laptop".
Welcome to a world where people like to conflate opinion and fact! Thank you for the awesome (in my opinion) video:)
Great episode - someone once told me "the tool that does the job is the right tool for the job."
I use whatever tool is needed to get the job done. I have to agree about the tablet space as I'm a iPad user as well because of the support model. Great Video as always. Thanks!
I just started using Linux mint and I'm still learning to use it's tools, kinda neat to have options to choose
For some people, learning to use a new tool is fun.
For others, it's not.
And sometimes I just need to get the work done with a tool I already know.
@Veronica Explains I came back to this video for specifically the ipad/netbook section. Have you considered the Star Labs Starlite? I briefly remember the netbook days (never had one myself) and this is pretty much what I remember them as form factor wise.
For the particular case of switching to vim, most editors have decent or excellent vim plugins that give you > 90% of what vim offers without leaving your current editor. This includes Emacs, IntelliJ, Sublime Text, VS Code, and no doubt many others. You can enable the plugin to try it out and disable the plugin if you try it and don't like it.
The thing is, when you first try vi-style editing, you'll hate it. It's only after a week or so, when you've edited some big hairy text file and realized how much longer what you just did would have taken you "the old way", that you start to appreciate it.
Lots of people try Vim for a while and give up, going back to their comfort-zone editor. If that "while" using Vim is long enough, at some later time they'll think, "what I want to do would have been straightforward in Vim". A seed is planted in their minds...
They try Vim again, get frustrated and rage-quit again, but the seed has grown a bit. The cycle continues a few more times until they eventually realise that nothing is perfect, but Vim is overall faster. (The famous StackOverflow reply, "Your Problem With Vim Is That You Don't Grok vi", will help a lot.)
Why yes, this is from personal experience, how did you know? 🙂
Vim is great when you use it a lot. If your editor use is totally casual, then the acclimation phase may not be worth it. Nano is easy, but not incredibly powerful. Emacs will act pretty much however you like if you can figure out how to set it that way, but it's a bit heftier than the others. Jupp and joe are more powerful than nano, but still pretty easy to figure out.
Such a refreshing message. Thanks Veronica!
You were a great teacher; I have learned much about Linux from scratch.
I feel like a lot of people new in the field feel the need to defend their choices competitively, I tell myself a lot of us go through it when we're young or when they don't know enough to realize why others may make other choices. I out grew it a decade ago at this point. Hopefully this video helps more people outgrow the insufferable superiority thing.
I'm a tech lead and I develop Android, both applications and AOSP. I use an iPad as my personal tablet, and a Mac as my dev computer. Its what I'm happy with. (Don't forget that Linux uses a lot of GNU tools, as does BSD and Mac OS *IS* BSD. I use mac ports and GNU and open source all the time on my Mac.
Oh yes, I produced one of the earliest ARM Linux distros back in the 90s and I have a Linux dev laptops (both for work and home) but my go to machine is my Mac Book Pro.
This came up randomly in my feed and I had to sub within 2 minutes. This video speaks to my heart when people ask me for tech suggestions.
"You use Windows? Does that mean I should swap to Windows when buying my new machine?" No stick with what you like and understand unless you are aiming for changing things up.
A couple years ago i worried a lot about all the newfangled and different tech stuff everyone would post on Twitter, and TH-cam. Really stressed me out. It's been SO much better since i said "fuck it i like MY setup." Also i just don't wanna learn new stuff if i don't have an explicit need to.
I am also all in on linux and FOSS software for my desktop (arch btw) and GrapheneOS on my pixel. But I still also use an iPad, it's great as a thin client for remoting into my work machine and using the apple pencil to take notes in meetings and such. I'm the type of person that has to physically write everything in order to retain information and I appreciate to have those handwritten notes stored digitally instead of in a million notebooks that clutter up the limited space I have in my small apartment. I'm a strong advocate for people using whatever works best for their needs!
+1 Kudos for the Vernon vs Roy fight clip. I still remember that like it was yesterday.
I have never heard so much good sense coming from one person in youtube. You got a new subscriber. Great video.
I'm a guy and I like nano. Quick and easy and almost always already installed.
5:37 Ooh! I have a suggestion! The GPD Win 4:
- Is *smaller* than a netbook, being explicitly handheld, and is considered pocketable (though your pockets may vary)
- Has a physical keyboard behind a Sidekick-style slide-out keyboard
- Runs Linux smoothly (according to The Phawx)
- Can be had with an LTE module
- Runs a full fat AMD Zen3+ / RDNA2 APU
- Is easy to take apart and repair
- Costs maybe 1.5x the iPad
I like the idea of a GPD Win. The price is a lot more than I'm willing to spend for a device that's mostly for "oh no" system failures when I'm away from my desk for an extended period of time. The used market might be promising ground though for picking one of these up!
Good video! Not everything needs to be a tribal battle. Tangentially related, I still use my old eeepc 901 from time to time it's a great little machine and it checks all the right boxes for me.
I agree with all of your comments. I have all of the tablets and computers you have talked about and the best tool is the one that is the most efficient and comfortable for YOU, and not someone else. I started on nano, I Am trying emacs, and have move to vim. I moved when I was comfortable and felt the need for more. Well said Veronica . Linux Mom. My late mother was the Cobol Mom, she would have liked your vids. Thanks a bunch.
LOL yeah Turbo C++ is a totally a viable IDE.
Seriously though, I was browsing an eBay seller's other listings when I was buying a vintage computer part off them, and saw a copy of 1978's _The C Programming Language_ by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie, so I picked it up too on a whim. It's been over a decade since I last did any programming at uni, so I thought it would be an interesting read, and maybe give me the push to get back into programming. So I installed Dosbox-X and Turbo C++ (you know, for the convenience of a modern programming language 😆), and it works just fine for following the examples in the book!
I know there's more modern environments, certainly many free and/or open source options, but I'm not interested in making programs for modern computers, it would be to run in MS-DOS on vintage computers.
And you know what? When I mentioned this to my friend who's a programmer, he gave me shit for it. But he just doesn't get that it's not about the end result, it's about the experience. That's really what the vintage computer hobby is about.
This is such a pet peeve of mine working in Cs academia. While there are some tools that can significantly streamline work (svn for collaborating on papers is hard to defend when there's git), there is a portion of (usually very young) academics that just can't believe you use x/y/z software, and won't stop telling you about it, even while seeing you succeed using your own tools. I wonder if it's a sense of insecurity in their "Cs credentials" sometimes that compels them, or if it is the relatively common "well, actually" character flaw that's very present in the field
Well actually... yes. It's a common character flaw in many of us nerds. We either get over it and wise up or keep doing it into our 30s and have people cringing at us.
2:02 I thought it to be a buffet, it's good I can see you sampling the cold cuts, and then I can have a starting point for my own seek and destroy.
There's so many different approaches and combinations on how to do just about anything - I love it when others share how they've done it so I can consider what's best for me and my use case. I am disheartened at how quickly knowledge forums compel some to troll. Oh, by the way, THANK YOU for not using click-bait verbage. Keeping the algorithm happy whilst creating content relevant to the title/description is a feat achieved by so few.. I appreciate what you do...
I used my discretion and honestly your opinions are totally forward moving and hold true to a lot of things more than just linux. first time viewer and out of my regular streams of content, but ima subscribe to see what else you got
Knowing the internet, you probably get a lot of crap for being a Cobol developer. Personally I did Cobol early in my career, and the experience I got working with CICS transactions, and writing re-entrant code, served me quite well when I started to do web development. I think people should use what they like. I may tease someone about using notepad instead of a more advanced editor when writing code, but it just good-natured ribbing. They may then turn around and poke fun at me because I like to use maven instead of gradle. None of it is serious, and I like the fact that I'm working with people where we can poke fun at each other.
You shine! You be you and do what makes you happy. Screw peoples who are judgmental.
Wonderful video. I personally use apple as a phone, android as a tablet and windows for pc. I currently use XP 7 and 10. These items work for me not the other way around.
you probably already know this but there are multiple linux distros that support 32bit architectures (ive only seen debian-based ones but i imagine you wouldnt have an issue with that), the one i use is antixlinux and im pretty satisfied with it
When you said that you prefer systemd over init, I felt a disturbance in the force, like a dozen of people all screamed at once.
I never had anything against arch linux itself, I just don't like snobbery and elitism. People who say "ubuntu is dead, use arch" fit that description perfectly. First off; nothing is ever dead until development ceases. And with open source projects, that almost never happens. It can easily fork into new ownership with a new name. Second off; there was an extremely long time when arch was not easy to install, which chases people away.
"Only a woman would choose nano"
If I knew this way back when in 2012, I'd start transitioning much earlier! :D
Religious wars suck. I didn't care about the whole Vim vs Emacs debacle and used nano, still do! Distro? I used Fedora (that was the workplace policy back then), I use Debian on my personal systems, I also sometimes use Mint and recommend it to regular users.
Rock on, fellow nerd! :)
same, nano was my main editor from 2012 (when I started using linux) until recently (learnt vim because I love efficiency, ironically the year my egg cracked lol).
@@aylen7062 ha, another one of the girls like us! :)
Mine cracked in 2017/18
I love nano. It works fine for 99% of small edits. VIM is neat but I never use it to it's full extent because...I don't need to? So its like going to the store in an giant off-road truck.
its good and reassuring hear some reason nowadays. Thank you for your content and all the times it helped me get out of a dissociative crisis. It is so prejudicial to someone that is learning to get dragged into these nonsense arguments.
I would really recommend the Thinkpad Yoga series to you, about 3 years old devices can be found for about 500€, it's decently small at 13 inch, they usually come with LTE and while it is certainly not as compact as an iPad it really is a neat portable laptop.
Hi Veronica.
Firstly, I totally agree with your keyboard choice, a minimal keyboard WITH the function and arrow keys is ABSOLUTELY the superior choice... for me... but not for everyone.... and that's fine :D
Secondly, outro music is amazeballs.
Obligatory personal distro and why I must be right generalisations:
I use Manjaro with XFCE because of two main reasons, 1 - I like to rice my distro but I'm lazy, 2 - it was the first I tried after moving from Ubuntu after being burned by a big breaking (and broken) version change and it worked and as I said, I'm lazy...
I've had a couple of people ask me what I use and would I recommend it and frankly I wouldn't recommend anything I do long term. Linux (for me) is about having a bit more control over your environment, so sure, play around and break it, but learn how you want your OS to work for you and try stuff till you work out how to get it to do that. Then come and tell me because I'm lazy and if I can have a low hanging fruit I'll take it. :D
Thank you very much for this video. I’m a technology enthusiast, and I see the same thing going on online, and it drives me bananas. I’m personally a Mac user, but I come on here to learn more about Linux, because you break it down in a really informative and easy to understand way. Because of you, because I want to play with it a little bit, I’ve actually installed in Ubuntu virtual machine so that I can mess with it on the side without screwing up my normal set up.
Happy to have you kiritasize me Veronica.
Love the content.
I'm just really happy to see a trackball person. Mouse people and touchpad people aren't bad - I just hate they're assumed to be the only ones to exist by every work place and laptop maker.
Which trackball do you like best? I love my Kensington. I dont remember the model name, Ive had it forever. Its about the size of a billiard ball, with 4 buttons, and, my favorite part, the scroll ring!
I agree on one's preferred distro not being for everyone. I use KDE but Gnome is such a close second for me, and I was on Gnome for a decade.
A linux option for the ipad - Im personally considering a GPD Pocket 3. No LTE, but itll tether to a phone. I dont have one yet, so no idea if its as good as it looks. Tiny, with keyboard, has tablet mode.
Right now I’m using the MX Ergo but I also like the large Kensington style trackballs, especially for retro computers!
Hey Veronica, about your small device recomendation, there is a small chineese laptop/console manufacturer called GPD, and some of their producs are like old netbooks, they are really powerfull too (as they are made for gamers). Sorry for sounding like an ad, but these devices hit your needs so well, AAAA thank you if you read this :3.
@5:50: "Hey hey why are we FIGHTING? Can't we all just agree to hate Snap??"
Also "Persuasive-essay-as-lifestyle" pretty much hit me like a running-late freight train, thanks. XD
Nice video! I've switched to Linux around two weeks ago and totally agree. It's good, but have it's flaws. Just as everything does (btw, I have been using an old netbook - HP 2133 mini)
Cool to see someone else still has a Mini Note 2133. I haven't used mine in awhile but I know Debian 10 worked great on it.
Thank you that was really refreshing! People shame too much others about their personal preferences. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter.
That's actually a really interesting thought - with all the power and size reductions we've gotten over the years, and getting rid of optical drives in laptops - why /haven't/ netbooks come back? Do they think people won't go for the smaller display? Or the smaller battery? Or is it that they can't get the price down? Maybe not questions you have answers to unless you have an inside line with someone who does laptop product development, but the technology is certainly there.
I guess I will offer my train of thought:
I am guessing most buyers are actually gamers so as long as that's making them profit they don't really care about any other group unless it gets them more money
Or even better for them is when groups they weren't aiming for buys their products, and since there isn't any other choice people simply continue buying(which lately seems to be very common since even normal work laptops have a pretty decent GPU, even integrated GPUs aren't that bad)
The intro sums up the 2020s wit too well.
Edit: ever try slapping a dual boot onto a surface? A bit of a hit to battery life for a tablet that doubles as a fully functional laptop.
so many ppl need to hear this. people really do too much. my girlfriend is always bugging me to get an iphone (im a huge android nerd), but id never pretend like android would serve her better. same goes for tablets. im in the middle of switching from windows to arch or manjaro (will likely be a years long process as i learn the ropes and wait for proton to evolve) but id never for a second suggest most people do the same. aside from shady corporate ethics, i wish everyone in this space could just live and let live.
there's a reason microsoft, apple, and google's products are so widely used. above ALL, tech needs to be accessible and serve the users' needs. X or Y linux distro or FOSS software just doesn't serve those needs just yet. do I think that free software should be the default taught in schools? of course, and maybe as a society we can become more technologically literate (and free) as a result. but hell, im a developer working for a bleeding-edge tech company and I wouldn't even recommend linux to most of my coworkers.
I remember an old AT&T video showcasing unix with Brian Kernighan in it. He pronounced it "user" in that video. If Professor K says it that way, I'm happy to do the same.
Ive been looking for another woman who talks about Linux! So happy I found your channel
A great, considerate and very well-argued video.
Based on the same logic: does your Mac run games that you enjoy and play often? If so, then Macs are good for gaming FOR YOU.
My M1 Mac Mini is just fine for games such as Hades, Hollow Knight, Dead Cells, Carrion, INSIDE, SUPERHOT and plenty of adventure games, and I use my early Intel and PowerPC Macs to play older Mac games. :)
Your observation on how aloof or exclusionary attitudes among Linux users may push others away from Linux reminds me of an Apple commercial from the mid-eighties. The "Lemmings" Macintosh Office commercial features snide narration and depicts blindfolded office-workers marching off a cliff. Unlike the inspirational 1984 Macintosh ad, many people found the Lemmings commercial insulting toward potential new customers.
"Persuasive essay as a lifestyle" Haha, gold =)
Recently had a similar thought process of "tablet vs. small laptop" and ended up with a used ASUS E203MA laptop, which runs perfectly for me. It's a 11,6" laptop so maybe not small enough for some usescases but being passively cooled with the N5000 processor and 4gigs of ram it runs super snappy for text and browserbased applications. Interested to see how many years i can use it before webpages are programmed so inefficiently to render it useless ;D
Other than that, big fan of the "use the tools you have" mindset and a fresh breeze of air in the whole looking-for-theobjectively-best and argueing over it without any reason online "eco"system. Keep it up!
Thanks for this. i don't really believe that most TH-camrs want to convince me that I should stop using any Distro or hardware and start using something else. How much convincing can you do in 10 or 20 min? I have a bunch of 6-7 yo, 32 bit junk hardware around. Linux makes sense. I am old enough that I live by "comfort over speed". I don't care what software or hardware you use. You speak plain enough to get my subscribe and bell.
I totally agree with your point... The perfect OS/software tool/text editor/console... even toilet paper! Is the one that fits and cover the main necessities of the user... I truly speak when I say that I love Unix based systems and my favorite is Ubuntu Linux, but MacOs actually fits better all my necessities in one. Also I'm not a huge fan of Windows but recently due to my work as a software engineer I had to migrate to a Windows PC and it was fine, I ended up getting up to speed so quick and getting the job done.
So no matter what option is used, the key is how to take advantage of the usage for helping us to get things done easy, confortable and quick.
I really loved your point. Great video!
As for software, it's pretty just use what you like.
For me, the software I use is.
Windows 11
Blender.
Unreal Engine 4/5
Fl Studio.
OBS
ShareX
Substance Painter.
Marvelous Designer.
Premier Pro.
Photoshop.
Scrivener for writing.
Opera GX.
(I make games, art, novels, etc.)
All of these programs are their alternatives. I've tried them all and these are the ones I like the most. Some people will prefer the alternatives but, that's fine. Everyone is different.
(PS. Just found this channel and you remind me of Technology Connections :D)
love my windows for gaming and office tools, love my linux for programming, and love my mac os for content creation (logic/finalcutpro). It's all good.
On the netbook front I use an old Thinkpad X201T. I love that the tablet version doubles as a tablet or a laptop and it is just a hair larger than the netbook. It runs just about any distro I throw on it and there are models that came with mobile support (not sure if it is LTE). You might be able to find a gently used one like I did for cheep.
And great video. Alot of people get very touchy about their devices myself included sometimes if I am honest. I went from PPC Macs to Thinkpads with Linux for my home computers. I basically got into both because at the time I was spending 8 hours a day fixing hosed Windows machines and just didn't want to have anything to do with Windows and as I stuck with it Linux became more and more usable and there was less reasons to boot up anything else.
flame wars, oh boy classic!
Bring back the 90's, the good times of the interwebs, and the bbs'ing!
I used to use an ipad for years since the iPad 2 up to the iPad Air 3. Now i use a Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra. For me, it's the best tablet for my needs. For me, software freedom is about choice. Choose what you want to use and what works best for you.
I use RHEL 6/8 at work. I use iPhone,iPadPro, iPadMini, Raspberry Pi and Linux Mint on my Lenovo 12.5inch laptop, and a M1 Macbook Air. And I’m trying to set up a VM system on it. Love your videos. Especially the ones about older Technology. I remember deploying Wyse 100 terminals with AlphaMicro S-100 systems.
Perfectly agree, a good tool is the one which suits you and helps you do your work and has a workflow which you like most. And that's it. Many "zealots" don't understand that certain tools exists only on certain platforms and you ought to use them for certain tasks. I love linux based systems, free and open source software, for pragmatic reasons and for privacy reasons, but for my job I need Windows, and no there's no alternative in the free and open source world in my case. And so it is in many others.
GPD WIN Max 2 is the small netbook you dream on. It has LTE and modern CPU. Unfortunately it's a bit expensive. Also there are other models of small notebooks from GPD
This is really nice to hear, to be honest. I'm a Computer Engineer (at least I will be when I graduate in December, hopefully) and I've been dabbling in Linux for the last 9 months. I've really enjoyed it and some day I wanna run Linux on my main PC, but I want to go back to Windows for the moment. I'd been holding off because of the whole "Windows is the enemy" mindset of the Linux community and I didn't want to be judged for it. I know Windows (and Microsoft as a whole) is ethically questionable (and in my opinion getting worse by the day) but it's also what I know best.
There's really nothing wrong with that approach. I mean, I personally think Linux is the best Kernel out there. And I switched so many years ago that it's just my default- like Windows is for many. But I can hardly fault someone for going back to dry land after dipping a toe in the water. It's a lot to do, changing OSes! And as a student, it sounds like you're busy enough! It's true that some in the Linux community get pretty judgy, but I promise we aren't all like that.
Good luck, and Linux will still be there if/when you're ready!
I love the form factor of the Lenovo X61 and wish they would bring that back. 16 years on and it runs Windows 10 32-bit just fine.
Totally agree, keep up the quality vids!
Thank you! I appreciate it! :)
I agree with your comments fully, for every task there is tool that works solely for you. Others may criticise how you go about things, it’s always good to hear a different point of view and learn how to use a different toolset. You never know when you might need to use them. Some people get very tribal over their OS, I use them all from Apple][, iOS, Mac OS, PaRisc Linux and windows 10 and the amount crap I hear about how bad they all are on a daily basis drives me nuts. I decided to use them all to get the best of everything they do well. Now enough about OS what really matters is what programming language is best, now that does cause some arguments.
This was great and something everyone should hear. From the 'console' vs. 'pc' crowd, to the 'Linux' vs. 'the world' crowd. Just trying to figure out the best distro for you as a 'daily driver,' can lead down rabbit holes for literal hours. And it's mainly due to what you describe here. This whole "X distro is the best and all else is trash" narrative that people want to promote. You'll often find that for every opinion about any distro, there is an opposite opinion that sounds just as convincing. In the end, it all comes down to what best suits your needs.
I am with you 100 percent. Personally I am just too tired to give a hoot about some opinionated dingus online who scolds everybody and their dog for what tools they use, what computer they have, what TP they prefer or which type of booze they enjoy. It is just asinine and what I like to call a colossal WOMBAT: Waste Of Money, Brain And Time. If anyone yells at me that "Your XY is bad and you should feel bad", I lose interest immediately. Those people often try to make some hypothetical (or made-up) edge cases as well as their own preference and workflow the be-all, end-all, canon that everyone should base their decisions on. And that is just dumb. And annoying. As soon as the discourse reaches the "But sometimes....!" stage, it is time to book it out of there.
People in general get WAY too hung up on tools.I have seen enough of this in other areas as well. For instance, I do photography as part of my job (you could call it corporate work I guess). And I cannot count the number of times some spec sheet jockey said to me "Wow, you work with THAT?! It is 5 years old, it does not have this encabulator and does not even come from Manufacturer X so how good can it possibly be?"
Well...apparently good enough that material I shot gets published.
I agree and I go as far as saying that, when it comes to OSs, it's all about which one you like, not which one is the best tool for your use case.
For 99% of use cases, you would be fine with Windows, Linux or MacOS. Especially when it comes to development. With WSL, you can do the same things you can on Linux and Mac OS.
Android and iOS these days are basically the same in terms of all of the apps you can run.
I use Windows 10 on my PC and Mac OS on my work laptop, I can legit use both OSs interchangeably.
I think of moving to Linux sometimes because of privacy, but the only issue is that I like the Adobe suite. But if I wasn't lazy, I could use DaVinci resolve, Gimp and many other open source tools to do the same things I do on those OSs.
I'm strictly talking about capabilities here, not security or privacy and stuff.
Opinions with nuance on the internet? wow this is great!
Veronica,
You are so level headed!
Linux is awesome, and so are you!
Goodness I appreciate videos that do not do the classic social media divisiveness approach. It’s OK to be fucking different !!!! (I love the fact that people ARE not all the same. If we were it would be like the link layer of networking)
You rock! Thank you so much for sharing your contents. It's very informative.
This is the warm fuzzies I needed in my Linux community. Thank you!
You are right, I should stop my search of the best. ❤️
Ref the usr directory, there is a video from AT&T featuring Brian Kernighan, and he says it "user".
Given how intimate he was in the earliest days of unix with Ken Thompson, I'd say he has authority.
I carry an Asus E210M with me all the time. It's a Windows laptop that's around Netbook size with a good build quality and actually decent keyboard. It runs for a decent amount of time, at about 8-10 hours per charge. It doesn't have LTE integrated, but you can get a USB or WiFi puck device for that.