LeFantome

They are not saying you cannot list elsewhere. They are just saying they have to get your best price.

If Walmart says you can only sell pickles on their shelves if you sell them pickles at your best price, is that anti-competitive?

Valve is a “natural monopoly”.

I agree in principle but all the world is grey and “enemy of my enemy” and all that.

The actual monopoly posing the most threat is Microsoft and Windows. Valve knows that they are the underdog. So Valve supports Linux and Open Source and supports it like a non-monopolist would (because they are fighting the Windows monopoly). We all benefit from their efforts.

Zooming in, we benefit from a strong Valve because their strength becomes our strength (for now).

Zooming out, I agree that Valve’s position as the de facto App Store for games makes them dangerous. At some point, they may become a bigger problem than Microsoft. That is not today, in my view, but we need to be mindful. Valve is not our friend. But Valve is a better friend than Microsoft.

Because CEOs in general lean pretty right?

Always remember: Linux is about choice

That is one of the advantages of Linux. Let’s not let it be a liability.

When coming to Linux, it is about “taking that first step”. If you are coming from something else, any distro is a positive move and they are much more alike than they are different (compared to the OS you are coming from). So, start with something safe. I do not use Mint but it is an awesome choice.

Once you learn more about Linux and about what you like, you will learn that you have 1000 choices. Once you know the difference and know which once suits you, you can switch. At that point, you will find switching easy.

The idea that people “have to choose” at the beginning holds many people back.

Any of Mint, PopOS, Fedora, or Ubuntu would serve a new user just fine. I recommend Mint because the UX is familiar to Windows users, it is “batteries included”, and it is conservative (stable). But the others are great too.

Really looking forward to seeing where COSMIC goes now that they have the basics in place. It could really give Plasma and GNOME a run for their money.

As a Niri user, I am also very thankful for the maturity that COSMIC is driving in projects like Smithay.

AerynOS seems to be ok though. Tune Morling (erno) seems to be very active in their repos and he is the current project lead.

I mean, we will see. I guess it is still in Alpha.

Agree. Here is a different take.

Unity was created by a corporation with massive resources. It was abandoned when that corporation changed its priorities. If proprietary, Unity would have died long ago.

Due to the efforts of a 10 year old volunteer, it was fully modernized and became quite popular again, offered in many distros. The lifetime of Unity as a project has already been extended by years. A 10’tear old kid. That is the power of Open Source.

The main contributor is not able to work on Unity right now. Others can take up the effort, because it is Open Source. That includes any user or group of users that live or rely on it. The opportunity is available to anyone.

Absolute worst case, the world already got more Unity than it would have. And it could be revived at any time.

Distrobox solves a great many problems. I use it in Cachy all the time.

Also, I am not sure what security Podman under Distrobox is making worse. Got an example?

You are suggesting Flatpaks for security? Um. Ok.

And how is calling the entire Freedesktop platform just to run an app better than the much more limited dependencies that Distrobox will pull in? And, if I already use Podman, Flatpak is a lot of extra complexity compared to Distrobox.

Exactly! Keeps the core clean. I use use Arch distroboxes on Arch or EOS for exactly this reason.

Distrobox changed the way I use Linux. I cannot imagine going back.

First, you are exactly right that it allows you to separate app repo from the rest of what you live about a distro.

I use an Arch Distrobox with every machine. Using Chimera Linux that uses MUSL, Clang, libc++, and BSD userland? Install anything from the Arch repos or AUR in seconds.

But it is not just package repo size. Using an app that targets RHEL? Install it from a RHEL Distrobox.

Doing dev for a project whose users are Ubuntu people? Build it in an Ubuntu Distrobox.

Want to try something and do not want it to mess up your system? Do it in a Distrobox.

Need some software for a class that will just be cluttering up your system after? Make a Distrobox for that class.

I have a .NET Distrobox. I have a Java Distrobox. Just not having to update the IDE and frameworks all the time is a huge win.

Mature application that I use every day that I do not want to change or break on me? Install from a Debian Distrobox.

Rapidly developing app where I want the latest for features and fixes? Install from an Arch Distrobox.

Tools you like that only Mint offers? Install a Mint Distrobox.

Distrobox is the greatest.