I totally get what OP is asking and am constantly annoyed by the same thing.
There's a ton of software that can ONLY be run on a mobile OS, and rather than deal with the nightmare that is a physical Android phone with all of its limitations and restrictions, it would be nice to have these things running in a VM that I can fully control. There's software that demands access to insane and ridiculous permissions, and I'm not going to install those to my physical Android phone and deal with the privacy problems. But a completely isolated VM with burner accounts that I can run in a window on the desktop I'm already using most of the time anyway? I'll take that. Also, I don't see the need to shell out the ridiculous price premiums for phone models with the most storage space when I only use a handful of apps when I'm mobile anyway. An app I might need two or three times a year still takes up that space on my phone when it could easily live on a VM and be used only when I need it at home.
Also, when Android releases new version updates and my phone manufacturer doesn't keep up? Why should I have to go out and buy a new phone just to appease the handful of apps that decide THEY want to be cutting edge and THEY'RE going to be the ones to force me to waste money? I should be able to just spin up another VM with the new Android version and use those sporadic apps on there until I decide to upgrade my phone in my own good time.
Also, Android X86 is fine, but the most problematic apps that mess with users and force apps to newer Android versions for no other reason than being "cutting-edge" aren't made by the kinds of companies with the forethought or customer focus to provide x86 compatible apks.
Basically, I don't see why it's so hard to run a full virtual, sandboxed ARM emulated vanilla Android environment, or why people aren't clamoring for this. It's the most practical, straightforward solution to the fragmentation/bad vendor update model that physical hardware forces on us and I assume most of us hate.
Linux has its flaws, but so does Windows. And for me, the flaws in Windows became much more annoying than the ones in Linux. Game compatibility was the main factor that kept me backt from using it on a desktop, and that's a non issue nowadays.
Hell, I can get a 30 year old HP LaserJet 4 printer working just fine on almost any version of Linux with the official HPLIP CLI software provided by (shockingly) HP, which was updated 2 months ago with support for over 50 new printers and the following OSes:
LinuxMint 21.1
MxLinux 21.3
Elementary OS 7
Ubuntu 22.10
RHEL 8.6
RHEL 8.7
RHEL 9.1
Fedora 37
I HATE HP and their printers (PC LOAD LETTER WTF FOR LIFE) but I will admit that this is impressive support.
Same… The principal engineer on this project also referred to me learning C# as my first exposure to a “real programming language”
After already being advanced in Python
And familiar with C, C++, JavaScript.
I think what he meant by “real” is it comes out of the box with proprietary windows components that aren’t going to work anywhere else and don’t have human readable code.
This is honestly quite interesting. I might get one, if only to play around with and see what cool stuff I can think of to do with it.
Also, their laptops look pretty sweet - I think it strikes a much better long-term balance between framework’s “plug-and-play” approach (which necessarily leads to a slightly clunkier and less sleek design) and Apple’s “inscrutable slab of electronics” approach.
Star’s approach requires more (dis)assembly time and care, but I think that’s fine. You can open up a Framework way more trivially, but well… how often do you honestly plan on disassembling your laptop? For me, it’s:
when I get it, to upgrade the RAM and SSD
if I want to upgrade later, but that typically happens years down the road, and sometimes not ever if it can do what I need it to do without issues
if something breaks and needs replacement… but that also typically happens years down the road
So, while I appreciate Framework’s approach… I’m honestly not going to crack the thing open more than 3 or 4 times, and hopefully only once or twice, so I am absolutely fine sacrificing super easy maintenance for an overall sleeker and more robust-feeling design.
The important bit not mentioned here is that FW machines are both user serviceable and user upgradable. No need to eat the cost or create the waste of replacing a perfectly good chassis and display, and then sell off the replaced mainboard on the market.
This might be the first time I’ve ever seen something productive happen in the Phoronix forums. I love that place. Go to any topic with more than about a dozen posts and it’s almost guaranteed to be a flame war. Genuinely one of the funniest places on the Internet.
The phoronix forums are insanely toxic. Everything is bad. Gnome = kid’s toy. systemd = written by Satan himself. Every programming language = too slow. Anything vaguely interested in fostering a diversity, equity, and inclusion = true colors come out in full force.
It’s so toxic yet I subject myself to it every now and again. There’s absolutely no moderation going on and it shows.
Wasn’t Manjaro supposed to be the stable version of Arch? That’s what I’ve heard.
The few years I had with Arch was pretty nice, but when something broke, it was pain to get it back working because downgrading wasn’t (isn’t?) supported. I guess I should have used snapshots of my whole system back then.
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