Laptop computers have made significant strides, and in 2023, they’re better than ever. However, there are still individuals perpetuating a delusion: That a powerful gaming laptop is as user-friendly and productive as the Apple iPad, which is what everyone should obviously be using. After a few discussions on Lemmy, I believe it’s important to provide a clear review of where these fancy “laptop” computers fall short as daily drivers for normal people like me.
PC gaming laptops will, most, likely, fail, for:
People who need the App Store
People that want everything to work exactly like it does on the iPad
Anyone who wants a simple way to install Angry Birds without trying to use needlessly complicated things such as a mouse and keyboard
Apple apps that won’t run because you bought a non-Apple laptop
The performance overhead of that extra complexity costs at least 5-15% of what you’d otherwise expect from such a powerful machine
People who need to run FaceTime and whose friends won’t consider any alternatives outside the Apple way of life
Serious scientific labs with policies that require iPad-only data acquisition
Musicians, artists, and customer service agents who’ve built their whole careers around iPad-only software
Developers and sysadmins, because you’re probably administering Apple systems for which the iPad is indispensible
Laptop computers are great, I love them but I don’t sugar coat it and I’m not delusional like you.
If one lives in a bubble and doesn’t to collaborate with other Apple iPad users then PC latop apps might work and might even deliver a decent workflow. But once you’ve got to work with other iPad users it’s “game over” — the “alternatives” just aren’t up to it.
iPads aren’t that expensive and they work right out of the box. Software runs fine, everything on the App Store is supported whatever you’re trying to do and you’ll be productive from day zero. There are annoyances from time to time, sure, but they’re way fewer and simpler to deal with than the hoops you’ve to go through to get a minimal and viable/productive laptop computer experience.
It all comes down to a question of how much time (days? months? aeons?) you want to spend fiddling with a mouse and keyboard to set up things which simply work out of the box on the Apple iPad for a minimal fee. Buy an iPad!You know it’s the only sensible thing to do and the ROI will be fantastic!
You can buy a second-hand iPad for around €4 that comes with everything you’ll need. And every iPad comes with IOS for no extra charge, so why wait? Buy it!Buy it now!
“They hated him because he spoke the truth. I can’t even get “simple” apps like Apple iMove to run on my PC. And there’s some kind of “video card driver” that needs “updating”? No sane person could ever cope with this. No amount of googling or even the fabled tech support genuis of “chatgpt” was able to help me. It just won’t work. This whole Internet is delusional, if they think that laptop computers are usable for the average Joe and I’m an Apple iPad expert so I know what I’m talking about. It’s too much hassle. I just want to get things done.” — Average Joe
Still thinking that 2023 is the year of the laptop computer? Think again. The Apple iPad is all the computing you will ever need.
I use arch.
edit: lol while I am new to arch, I guess I kind of expected people to disagree with me. I was under the impression that stock arch is very lightweight? I know there used to be jokes about “I installed Arch” cause it’s supposed to be hard. But I installed Arch on my desktop and server recently, I did the manual install on my desktop and the guided install on my server. Both super straight forward. Plus Arch seems to have some of the best documentation across distros. I don’t know why it should not be suggested, unless I am missing something.
Most people want stability (low change) for servers. Arch is typically run where plentiful software updates are welcome. It’s not that you can’t/shouldn’t use Arch for servers, but it isn’t the most conventional suggestion.
Ability to pin applications to the taskbar depending on which virtual desktop/workspace you are in. For example, I’d like a coding desktop that just has an ide, browser, and terminal.
yeah any wm or de has or should have that capability. Windows and mac allow that as well. I’m talking about specifically which apps are pinned to your taskbar. which sway and most wms that I’m aware of don’t have
I really want to have better tiling and window management in Gnome. Ubuntu has an add-on released with 23.10 that I haven’t got around to test yet. And I know that Gnome has that feature in the works, but it annoys me that Windows 11 has better management of windows with window-snapping than my DE of choice.
The one the Gnome team is working on right now, as described here.
The basic premise of rearranging windows at an optimal size, without stretching them out to fill fractions of the screen, seems like the perfect medium between floating and tiling.
I find I have that issue in Windows 10. There’s not much consistency between applications in terms of which monitor or even desktop they’ll launch in when I open them.
As an aside remark, it’s really funny how everyone has to elaborate what the fuck they’re talking about when they talk about Twitter.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter) Ubuntu explains the situation
could have just been written as
In a tweet, Ubuntu explains the situation
but the epic genius elon decided to destroy all brand recognition. Truly incredible thing to witness. Twitter literally got its own branded terms into common lexicon and he just set it all on fire.
Does anyone know of a linux tool that can immediately ban an IP address if they try to log in to ssh with specific user names? I see a ton of attempts in my logs for names like fax, mysql, admin, and of course root. Fail2ban only works if the same IP makes repeated attempts but I’m betting if I could generate a list from these failed attempts it would probably correlate with standard blocklists of compromised hosts. For that matter, is there a way to use an RBL to limit addresses that ssh will even accept? Of course none of these attempts have a chance of logging in, but it would still be nice to further limit my exposure for any future attacks.
I build Linux routers for my day job. Some advice:
your firewall should be an appliance first and foremost; you apply appropriate settings and then other than periodic updates, you should leave it TF alone. If your firewall is on a machine that you regularly modify, you will one day change your firewall settings unknowingly. Put all your other devices behind said firewall appliance. A physical device is best, since correctly forwarding everything to your firewall comes under the “will one day unknowingly modify” category.
use open source firewall & routing software such as OpenWRT and PFSense. Any commercial router that keeps up to date and patches security vulnerabilities, you cannot afford.
I had an EdgeRouter X for years before I started my job. They are solid devices, and I’d definitely put them above most consumer routers.
Because they only charge for the hardware, they will eventually run into the same disincentive to provide consistent timely updates. If you do buy an Ubiquiti or similar enthusiast brand, do still keep an eye out for the CVEs that don’t get patched.
That’s understandable. However, pf (OpenBSD’s firewall system) is incredibly logical and easy to use. I never expected to write a fully operational (bloody thing worked the first time I tried it!) firewall ruleset on a two hour flight from scratch.
I’d always argue for Linux Mint Debian Edition, especially for noobs. Regular Mint is fine too, but they have not announced its future as far as I know. What with Ubuntu going all in on snaps and all that. Personally I think they should just make LMDE the default Mint and call it a day. Let Mint 21.3 be the last version and then go all in on the debian base.
It’s a little puzzling to me that Linux isn’t popular in low-income countries. Why wouldn’t it be the OS of choice there? Do we need to become linux missionaries? I imagine it would be easier to convince people who can’t buy an iPhone to use FLOSS than those who can drive to an Apple Store and waddle over to get yet another one.
They know little about open source. Microsoft is exclusively in schools and government, and that is what they grow up with. They probably know more about pirating Windows, than using Linux legally. There is also a good kick-back in terms of MS license mark-ups for middle-men businesses. One would hope there is some mandatory education around different OSs as I’m sure kids would love to explore and modify software.
Your daily reminder that VSCode is shit not because of telemetry (take your time foil hat off for one second and hear me out and I say that jokingly with love) but because the extension marketplace is not allowed to be accessed by third party tools (INCLUDING CODIUM) and even then many of the extensions are proprietary, closed source. You’re not even allowed to distribute compiled VSIX files. It’s disgusting. Reading about the troubles gitpod faced that led to the (now) Eclipse Marketplace (idk the name, but it’s for VS Code plugins, don’t be tricked, it’s just owned by Eclipse foundation) is disheartening.
That’s because even a grey market Windows key costs US$20 nowadays and that’s over ₹1,600. For comparison purposes, the largest Indian banknote is ₹500.
…but not legal. Being poor doesn’t necessarily mean you’re inclined to break the law. Besides, Linux is useful if you perhaps want to later get a job in the tech field.
You’re not breaking the law, you’re breaking a software license agreement. That does not automatically make it a crime, at least, that would depend on your exact local laws, and the lawyer’s interpretation of it - in many cases the actual wording around this is ambiguous and could be argued both ways. A better term for it would be a “legal grey area”, which means if you’re a company then don’t f*** around with it, and if you’re just a random user then no one gives a f***.
In any case, if those scripts were truly illegal, then the Microsoft-owned Github wouldn’t host them in the first place. Clearly Microsoft themselves don’t have an issue with it, so why should anyone else care about it?
Yes, you are breaking a law. Copyright infringement in this manner is an offence under the Copyright Act 1957 punishable with up to three years imprisonment and a fine.
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