A Philosophical Question

[Shibblet]

It has been postulated that this is the main question regarding "FOSS" or "FREE" software. Particularly Linux.

By accepting the use of Windows or MacOS, you are accepting to have your usage data used for advertising purposes.
By accepting the use of (most) Linux, you are accepting that you may not be able to run specific software.

The Question: Is allowing your private usage data an acceptable option for more compatibility?

i.e. Games, Adobe, Software Licenses, etc.

This may or may-not be the real question, but this is what has been presented to me as the only "real" difference between choosing OS's.

What do you think?

[TheFu]

I think every individual will have different answers, sometimes, different answers based on the time of day.

[grahammechanical]

Compatibility with what?

A zealous believer in FOSS would not use a web browser to access a news website or a retail website or a government web site to get information about medical treatment. In fact, I cannot see how such a zealous believer could visit a doctor's surgery or a hospital as those places record personal data on computers.

Here is a philosophical statement: Throughout human history the most zealous activists have been the most hypocritical of all people.

A person running GNU Herd or Debian would find themselves severely restricted as to what software they could use. A person running any distribution of Linux would find that they cannot run software from the Microsoft and Apple operating systems. This severely restricts what software can be run.

Life restricts many people in many ways. Even the very, very rich eventually get caught by sickness, old age and death. Death is incompatible with life. Sometimes, but rarely, the very rich get shown up for the sort of person they really are.

Regards

[Shibblet]

Compatibility with what?

I think what they were getting at, was that with Linux, you have to give up a few things, or learn how to do it differently. Whereas with Windows, mostly everything works.

My own personal issues with Linux have been:
Game Compatibility: This is a thing of the past now, as I don't really play many games anymore, and with Proton, a lot of games work now without fuss.
Hardware Video Acceleration: Kind of works, but also doesn't in certain situations. YouTube / Stadia / GeForce Now
Adobe: 20 years of training... hard to learn something new, when instead, I could be productive.
Hardware Compatibility: Had to get rid of some really nice Bose Companion 5 Speakers w/ Subwoofer, because someting was changed in Ubuntu 16.04 (I think), and forward.

Here is a philosophical statement: Throughout human history the most zealous activists have been the most hypocritical of all people.

A person running GNU Herd or Debian would find themselves severely restricted as to what software they could use. A person running any distribution of Linux would find that they cannot run software from the Microsoft and Apple operating systems. This severely restricts what software can be run.

I'm trying to remember where I saw it... but it was Richard Stallman basically stating "Well, I am going to have to agree to something, otherwise I can't have anything." I want to say it was about Netflix or Amazon... can't remember.

Life restricts many people in many ways. Even the very, very rich eventually get caught by sickness, old age and death. Death is incompatible with life. Sometimes, but rarely, the very rich get shown up for the sort of person they really are.

Regards

Yes, there are always life restrictions, but I am talking about the actual choices that can be made.

Gamer: Why do you use Linux? You can't play "Dargenboof" on it?
Linux User: Why do you use Windows? It tracks everything you do, and sends your data to Microsoft.
Gamer: Cuz it will play "Dargenboof."
Linux User: So, what you're saying is that the trade-off is your personal data for "Dargenboof?"
Gamer: Yeah, well, all my information is irrelevant anyway.

[TheFu]

I think what they were getting at, was that with Linux, you have to give up a few things, or learn how to do it differently. Whereas with Windows, mostly everything works.

I've had different experiences with Windows. My printer isn't supported. My scanner and fax machine isn't supported. My TV tuners are only supported after multiple driver installs and multiple reboots (sometimes 3).

Windows stuff only works if you are willing to throw away peripherals every 5 yrs. Win11 will make lots of people throw away their computers, which work perfectly fine. MSFT makes a product that fills dumps. Soon, I'll be forced to replace my VGA monitors since that port has been removed from GPUs. If I lose that, then my KVM switch (VGA+PS2) will need to be replaced.

Forced obsolescence is for Apple users, not the rest of us. Alas, MSFT has been learning from Apple.
And game companies have learned they can sett the same title 5 times ... MS-DOS version, Win95 version, WinXP version, Win7 version, Win11 version because people are too lazy to get the MS-DOS version running on Win11 ... or Linux.

Don't get me started about the Man-in-the-middle game downloaders, which track what we install and what we run. Steam is that ... just like streaming video hardware tracks what we watch and how long it is playing. No thanks. The world of tracking has to stop.

[GhX6GZMB]

+++++ 1 ^^^^^

MS forced obsolescence was what drove me to Lubuntu, and I've never looked back. Suddenly HW that was supported by MS is no longer supported. "Buy a new PC instead" is the message.

Mind you, I'm not certain that there's malice behind it. Just lousy technology.

Windows started from DOS -> Win3.11 -> Win95 -> XP -> Vista etc. and was always built on clay feet.

Linux is based on UNIX System V, which from the start was a rock-solid multi-tasking, multi-user OS with comprehensive user and access management. MS is still struggling with this (and it's not getting better).

[grahammechanical]

I do not accept that the "real" difference between choosing operating systems is the choice between choosing to accept use of private data and choosing to accept limited choice of applications.

Millions of people choose laptops, smartphones and tablet PCs not on the basis of operating systems. They are not offered a choice of operating system. Their choice is based on advertising publicity; or following fashion trends. There are other reasons as well. And advertisers know the customers and they know how to trigger the emotional purchasing response.

Suppliers of preinstalled Linux machines usually offer a choice of Linux distribution. Some suppliers of preinstalled Windows machines will offer a version of some of their most expensive laptops with Ubuntu installed. But not other Linux distributions. And not on more affordable machines. This is as far as I can tell. And as I am only interested in Ubuntu I did not look too far.

Regards

[Shibblet]

I do not accept that the "real" difference between choosing operating systems is the choice between choosing to accept use of private data and choosing to accept limited choice of applications.

Agreed. There are a multitude of differences between the OS's, however, the "philosophical difference" between usage data and non, is a practical question.

Millions of people choose laptops, smartphones and tablet PCs not on the basis of operating systems. They are not offered a choice of operating system. Their choice is based on advertising publicity; or following fashion trends. There are other reasons as well. And advertisers know the customers and they know how to trigger the emotional purchasing response.

Yes and no. The amount of Laptops, smartphones, and tablet PC's that are available are primarily loaded with OS's that share usage data. There are only a minute amount of truly "private" devices. And those devices require a bit more knowledge to use than the other popular devices. i.e. An iPhone is significantly easier to use than a Librem 5, but one shares usage data, and the other does not. Not to mention things like support, software, peripherals, etc.

Suppliers of preinstalled Linux machines usually offer a choice of Linux distribution. Some suppliers of preinstalled Windows machines will offer a version of some of their most expensive laptops with Ubuntu installed. But not other Linux distributions. And not on more affordable machines. This is as far as I can tell. And as I am only interested in Ubuntu I did not look too far.

Well, arguably, Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distro. Places like System 76, who make their own Linux Distro (Pop_OS!) also give users an option of installing Ubuntu. ZaReason used to let you pick from some of the major distributions for install with purchase.

But, I also understand what you're saying... usually it's Windows, and maybe Ubuntu. I have never seen a major retailer that offers Fedora or SuSE... not here in the US anyway. But I have seen Ubuntu offered.

Regards

Always appreciate your feedback!

[TheFu]

There is a real fear by most people, especially those who are younger of "missing out." On what, they don't really know, but they don't want to miss out. That is what drives social networks. Ever watched a 20-something freak out when their phone isn't available for a day? You'd think they were standing on hot coals or holding a boiling cup of water based on the twitching.
MSFT has been pushing "FUD" - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt" for decades as a marketing model. We can see that with any release of any popular MSFT product as 50% of the computer support people strive to know something about a pre-released product both for their own interest and so they don't appear out of the "know" to their clients.
The Linux world has some of that too ... with every Ubuntu release, something changes. The installer changes, major stuff like Wayland or netplan or ActiveDirectory become supported ... er... sorta. Turns out these are usually pre-production versions and 2+ more releases are really needed before they are ready.
When will Ubuntu connect to standard POSIX LDAP users, groups and storage as easily as it does CIFS and MS-AD? That's what I'd like to know. The tools are all there, but their isn't a slick GUI for user management included. If I have 3 computers at home, why aren't all the accounts shared between them with just 1 password DB? We should be able to change our passwords once, on 1 system and have that reflected throughout the LAN.

For a long time, we used NIS for this and it worked, but then security became important and NIS is full of security flaws. Sun (now Oracle) made NIS+, but decided to keep the server proprietary while giving the clients all away. NIS+ clients exist for every Unix-like OS, but not the server. For users and groups, I've used LDAP. The management of that is CLI only and one of the ugliest things I've ever seen (which is saying something).

I know ugly. This week, I parsed some JSON and converted it to XML http://wiki.xmltv.org/index.php/XMLTVFormat ... by hand . Two of the ugliest formats ever made. LDIF is worse. That's the input language for LDAP.

[TheFu]

Well, arguably, Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distro.

Android, by far, is the most popular Linux distro. I'd bet there are millions of embedded devices running custom Linux installs that we never know about. Any non-trivial IoT device is running Linux, so think of all those IP webcams deployed worldwide. They run Linux. I doubt the smart-switches have a full OS and the smart-light bulbs probably don't either.

There are over 3 BILLION active Android devices in the world. That's 3x more than Windows PCs.

With the right device, we can load a F/LOSS version of Android, not connected to any tracking. In 2008, I had a debian device from Nokia that didn't track. Now we have LineageOS. https://lineageos.org/ We have to be careful in the hardware selected.

Next would be ChromeOS ... on Chromebook and ChromeBox systems. More Chromebooks were sold in 2020 than Apple computers, so it isn't a small number.

I will agree that Ubuntu probably has the most home, desktop, installs of any Linux and that if Ubuntu-derivatives are included, then there isn't any contest. So, I'm including Linux Mint, MX-Linux and a few others beyond the official-supported-by-Canonical versions.

For public web servers, Ubuntu appears to be the most popular OS with about double the next competitor. However, inside companies, it is MS-Windows then Redhat (34%), then they group "all others" into the remaining 18%. These numbers aren't completely accurate, since getting every company to spell out their server OS just isn't possible.