0:00 Introduction & Mobile OS Chat

0:00 Android and iOS. We can definitely do another session on this shit. Yeah. Are you on a what are you on? IOS or Android? Did So I was iOS for the last six years. I was Android fully before that, and now I'm back on the Android train. And I've gotta say the Pixel is a great device. Yep. Oh my gosh. Like, I can go on so much about the whole iOS because I've done both. I was a iOS, like, iOS user for a long time, then went went to Android, then went back to iOS, and, like, currently,

0:31 I'm on Android on a Pixel device and loving it. Absolutely loving it. Yeah. The only thing I really miss is just the Pixel watch is dreadful. But the Apple watch Yeah. I have I have one. Like, it's a whatever. I never had an Apple watch, so I don't know any better. But the Apple watch is great because you we're able to just, like, log in to my MacBook with it and everything, and I've lost all that convenient stuff. But, I mean, I'm willing to pay that price for a more open platform. Yeah. Well, in part of that, it's because

1:01 you're on a you're on you're on Linux too. So Yeah. Ironically, Android works better with Windows. Yeah. That that's that's yeah. That's what I want. Yeah. The the integrations there are stellar. Yeah. People are dripping in the hello, BigPod. Says echo. Is that me? Do I have an echo? Oh, shoot. Someone I'm not hearing anything. Yeah. And there's some iOS ARCs. That's nice. Yeah. I mean, this is just gonna be a therapeutic run, I think, from the three of us. Right? So Yeah. So, Hayden, I wanted to know yeah. So I think so I guess if we all just,

1:44 like, basically shared, like, what what we work on or whatever. But, like, Hayden, I've never quite figured out. Are you primarily a Windows user? Like, your breadth of knowledge on Linux use Linux and Unix and Windows is amazing. And, like, I can never really figure out, like, what type of user you actually are. I mean, I I use both daily. So daily driver, Windows 11 with WSL, but I work in the cloud. I work on my own servers on Linux. I mean, I've used Linux since, like, I was a teenager since, like, circa 1999. Like, my first Linux experience

2:26 was having to rebuild the Linux kernel to support my ATI graphics card. That was my first foray into Linux. This is like it's almost the same because I got into Linux around '98. It was around the time Windows '98 because, like, I was I was I got into computing or whatever, like, was really with DOS, pretty much just Intel and DOS. That's where you know? And so I I got heavily into Windows '95. I was very active in the wear scene back then. Nice. And so I got into Windows 95 really early because it was all

2:56 on the wears. You can get it early before it came out. So I I, like, I got into Windows 95 and got super good at that. And then by the time Windows 98 came out, I was, like, fed up with like, I could reinstall Windows so fast and reconfigure everything because I felt like I had to do it weekly because, like, it would just always go to crap. So I'm like, there's gotta be something better. So I started looking at Linux. And so my experience with with Linux was like, I'm like, oh, I heard about this

3:22 thing. Let me download it and try it out. And I spent literally about a month trying to get the Tulip driver working for my network card. And but, by the way, also realized I knew nothing about programming. Really nothing. It was like, I spent about two weeks just trying to get Linux installed, and then I finally got it installed. And I got it, like, boot up, and I got to the command line. Like, I got to the login, and then I'm like, shoot. I didn't because, like, Windows doesn't have a user by default. It was like I was

3:52 like, what do I log in with? So then it was like, I had to find out what a root user was and what the root user. So I actually came up on early DOS, early Windows, started dabbling in Linux. And then post XP, I kind of still fiddled with Linux but switched to Mac. And I was pretty diehard Mac user from about 02/2003 to I can date it to the new MacBook butterfly keyboard. Yeah. So I I I bought I I sold my old MacBook Pro and bought the new MacBook Pro every year until the butterfly keyboard came, and I could

4:39 not stand it. So I started looking around for great keyboards, and I got a lot of recommendations for ThinkPads. And I'm like, perfect. I'll get a ThinkPad. They're really well supported on Linux, installed Linux, but there were a handful of applications I needed at the time that needed Windows that didn't run well in Wine, and I was running VMs. And this little thing had just been announced just around 2016 called WSL. And I'm like, wait. So I can have a desktop that just works, runs all my programs, but then also gives me my Linux working

5:18 environment for programming. And that's that was it for me. So, David, I think we before we went live, you commented how you wanted a OS that just worked but still gave you that that that experience on the terminal. I just came at it from a different direction. Yeah. Like, David, what are what are what are you running now? So I'm in a bit of a weird phase right now. So after the fire, I just stole my my Apple hardware. I'm kind of in frustration with the Apple approach to the the European ruling that they had to have a more open platform, and

6:00 I feel that the way they made App Store to work in Europe only and super expensive, like, the paper install and stuff like that. I was just like, this isn't the company I wanna be using their products anymore. So right now, I have a nice desktop computer. I've got a new Android phone, and the Linux that I'm running is normally Nexus, which I know I'm gonna get slapped for. You're just playing into a. It's the boss. The form you you listen to to Twitter too much of everyone who everyone who's talking about these days is, like,

6:31 just dive right into. And in my opinion, Nixos is what I was running, like, seven years ago before I went on my Mac my Mac holiday. So but I am trying for Dora Silverblue right now, and I'm gonna kinda try and explain why. I've given talks at conferences over the years, and I talk about my desktop habits or laptop habits, which is I wipe all my devices every 30. Cool. Because I like the automation. I like to know that I'm never losing anything older than a month. Keeps me fresh. I change things up. But with SilverBleu, I don't know if I'm

7:05 even gonna need to do that because it's an immutable operating system where I just have my home directory. And everything that I need, I I still use Next. Like, if I need packages, I use Next or Flatpaks. Flatpaks are a pain. We'll get into that as we kinda go through the flow the flow of the motions here. But I'm really impressed with Silverblue. It's essentially code OS, but for desktop computing. And George, who was on the chat don't know if he's still here because he says he'll need to catch up with the recording. He has a a uBlue. He works on

7:36 the uBlue project, which is, like, trying to make it silver Silver Blue more developer friendly and for it went to expatriates. I don't even know what that means, but it comes with some pretty awesome default. I don't understand that either too. What what exactly is the Ubuntu flare that that they're adding? But but it's a no. I like what they're doing with the Yeah. It's it's just it's the simple things that, like you know, I normally disable Secure Boot, which I know I get flagged for too. But they make it so easy because they handle all the signing and stuff like that

8:11 that it just works. Yeah. And they even configure things like using the TPM module for automatic disk decryption. And, like, it's all these subtleties that just make it a more pleasant experience. And, also, the fingerprint reader works on my framework laptop, which is never the case. And I don't know what magic they've done to their configuration to make that work, but I love it. Yeah. They're doing a great job. I think that's more of a testament to framework because they they cater so much to the Linux community. Because, like, I would use the fingerprint reader on my my ThinkPads or whatever, but

8:40 it just wasn't reliable enough. Kinda drove me nuts. Yeah. Yeah. Not in this weird situation, Marie. You're scanning it. It says no enter password, and then you start typing your password, then the fingerprint logs in anyway. And you're like, what? Yeah. All these little things. And Yeah. Yes. Framework is amazing. Their their hardware is great. Like, I just ordered a new released a new screen, and I can hot swap that. This well, not hot swap. But I can swap it pretty easy when it comes, and I'm like, this is amazing. So Yeah. So I have a serious problem

9:07 when it comes to buying laptops. I almost always buy a new laptop every year, and then it's, like, kinda gotten worse these days because, like, I started getting into, like, Windows and AI stuff. So then it was like, oh, well so I, like, I have a framework. It's like, I'm a I've been a pretty diehard ThinkPad user, and then I got into framework because I like the fact you can swap out things. I think, like Yeah. Framework's kind of like promise, ThinkPad's my impression like, I really like ThinkPads. I just think they're such a nice like, when

9:38 you think about a laptop, it's like, what do you care about a laptop? It's it's like the tactile experience of, like because that's the thing you're physically touching. So you should get the one with the best keyboard with the best feel or whatever. So it's like that's why I like the ThinkPad so much. So, like, framework is kinda weird. It's the op it's somewhat it's like it's more practical. It's swappable. It's all those stuff, but it doesn't have the same, like, tactile experience, but it's not terrible. It's just like so it's like it's a weird thing.

10:03 But, anyway, so I have a framework. Like, I have a framework, and then in the last, like, month or like, last month, I guess, I got a Surface laptop. But even on the framework, was running Windows. But but, anyway, so let me let me explain my my my setup or or whatever. Like, what I what I do. Because, like, I I got in like I was saying, I got into Linux back, like, in in the late nineties, and I I mean, I'm a diehard Linux. Like, I just 100% switched to Linux. Everything I've done since then has been all of my personal

10:36 and professional devices have always been Linux. Like, every company I worked at never allowed Linux, like the big companies I worked at. Mhmm. But I just broke all the policies and hacked my way and figured out and I always ran Linux. I did a lot of, like, terrible things where it's like, oh, like, that was probably not a smart idea, but I was young and stupid. But, anyways, so it's like so I've always run Linux on everything. So it's like, my my perspective is, like, one, I love Linux because I have this thing where it's like, it

11:04 just drives me nuts where it's like, I want things to be a certain way. Like and if I can't have that, it drives me nuts. I think it's just like my aversion to authority or something. You know? It's like, I just so that's what drives me nuts about Mac is, like, Mac is, like, an amazing thing, but there's just certain things that are just like, no. I you just can't have that. Like, you just can't have it. And so that's why, like, fundamentally why I just will not use Mac. It's like that I I'll run into one thing

11:29 that would drive me nuts, and I can't have it, and I just can't work around it. There's no hack. Whereas, like, Linux, Windows, there's always a hack. But, anyway, so it's like for Linux, it's like, I've been using it so long, and I went through basically the kinda like the first fifteen years of using Linux was more of your typical Linux person who, like, thinks it's amazing and wants everyone to use Linux. And then after about, like, fifteen years, realized how kind of dumb it is to, like, preach Linux to people. And then, like, for

11:57 the last decade, it's more like, okay. I just need this thing to work. And I and I just, like so I'm, like, I I now on Twitter is, like, I'm just constantly telling people how terrible Linux is. Yet, like, I'm a diehard Linux user, but, like, I just can't help because it's, I've used it for so long that it's, like there's just so many problems of, like, trying to get it to a larger mass market of users that, like, it's just so infeasible. And so it's like I don't know. On the one hand, it's like I don't wanna

12:29 discourage people from trying to make Linux better, but on the other hand, I understand, like, the practicalities of it will probably never get across the line. Like, it'll probably like, it's so hard. Like, Canonical had the best shot, and they gave up. And so I was like, I don't know where Linux like, how Linux is really gonna so it's like, it's just this niche niche niche thing. But but, yeah, that's, like, the bigger but, like but for me, like, for Linux these days, it's like, it just has to work. That's my biggest thing is, like because I use

13:01 it professionally and I do everything. It has to work. So I I go towards I have a very kind of conservative Linux approach that, like, is not shiny and cool. Like, everyone like, everyone who's trying to get to use Linux these days is doing, like you know, it's like, oh, look. Like, this crazy team up set up or or or whatever. Or Like, all the stuff that, like like, you know, DHH is doing, which is great. Like, I'm glad to see bringing users and new exciting thing or, like, all that stuff. I don't do any of that. I'm, like, a really

13:35 boring user. I don't know. Like so I wanted to actually, like like, show completely, like, show my setup. Like like, this is how I use Linux. So it's like, this is how I use Linux. And then why over the last, like, six months or so, I've actually switched to so what I have is, like, I have a desktop and a laptop. My desktop is this crazy Threadripper system that runs Linux. It's static. It's like the workhorse. And then I have a laptop, and I flip, like, fifty fifty between the the the two things. So it's like during the day,

14:08 I'm working on the desktop, and at night, I'm working on the laptop. And I typically do more programming on the laptop because at night, I'm not talking to people. During the day, I'm talking to people. And so my setup is, like, I have, like, a I synchronize things between the devices so I can very seamlessly go back and forth be between me or whatever. But so it's so the the desktop is Linux, but the laptop is Windows. And I'm able to switch between the two and and really not know any different. And that's what I've really enjoyed about Windows and

14:41 WSL two is I get my, like, Linux fix out of it because the way I've I use it and the way I've set it up is, like, I almost don't even know it's Windows. I really rarely see the Windows side of it, but I get the benefits of the Windows side of it where things generally just work better. Like like, for example, like, I tried to join a Google Meet for this this like, the invite you sent out had a meet for something that I Google. So I clicked that. And, like, when you log in to that,

15:13 it was like, oh, do you wanna have us frame your your like, use AI and frame your your head in the picture or whatever? So I'm like, oh, that's interesting. Let me click that. Complete garbage. It's, like, slow. But this is the thing you just come to expect on Linux. It's like, ah, whatever. It's like it's Linux. Like, it probably works fine on Mac and Windows. But, like, on Linux, there's some weird thing where it's just not working right or whatever. So I don't know. So, yeah. So let let me let me actually, like like, share my setup. I'll show you

15:45 what I'm doing. So, like, I'm I'm sharing my screen, and I'll show you. Let me get this out of the way. So this is gonna be, like, tiny because it's just, like, my my desktop or whatever. Let me let me oh, yeah. I'll just, like, minimize this. Okay. So what I run so this is my desktop. It's like what I run is Ubuntu. Oops. Sorry. That was me. My bad. So so what I run is I run Ubuntu LTS. So, again, like, what I found is I really hate rolling distributions because rolling distributions, they just end mean in

16:27 the Linux ecosystem, a rolling distribution just means you're gonna randomly break. And so for my host OS because, like, I really separate things between, like, what's the host OS and then what I have in my home directory. For my host host OS, I want something super stable. So it's like, I really like Ubuntu LTS because Ubuntu, what I found, it has, like, the best compatibility with hardware from a kernel perspective. Like, Fedora, I think, is an amazing distribution. Like, they're doing a lot of good things, but it still does not have the the compatibility, I think, that that the Ubuntu kernel does.

17:01 Like, I, like, I think Ubuntu puts a crap ton of effort into just hardware device compatibility and whatnot. So so, anyway, so I run LTS, and so, like, I haven't even switched to twenty four zero four yet because I was it was more of, like, I'm gonna hold off and wait till that stabilizes a little bit because, again, I don't wanna be screwing too much with this. But so so what I run is Some some of their motorcycle or something. So I this is ex Ubuntu, but I think I technically install Ubuntu because, like, I'll do an Ubuntu, a minimal

17:41 install, and then just do the x the x debt or x Ubuntu desktop package or whatever. Whatever. But but for the most part, like, the packages that I have installed on the host are are just ex Ubuntu. Like, I don't really actually touch app that much. Like, I I'm a pretty diehard like, I use brew for pretty much everything. So it's like, I use brew in my home directory. Because, like, what I found over time was that, like, if you keep your host OS super stable and you never touch it, like, you it needs to supply, like, the base

18:16 graphical environment. So x f c x f c e comes from it. Like, I keep that super stable, and then I have all the crazy bleeding edge development stuff in my home directory. So brew is tech is pretty much a rolling Linux distribution. It gives you the latest and greatest of everything. So it's like, I like that setup. So it's like my home directory, latest and greatest, the host, super stable. And this is, like, why I also kind of appreciate, like, Silverblue. And and because, like, Silverblue or what, like, Bluefin is doing like, they're kind of doing

18:49 this, you like, implicitly to a certain degree where it's like, the host and the applications are really completely different distributions. Because flat pack brings in its own distribution. But but the so the so the way I do things is, like, I have this this is actually it's XFCE, but you can see there's, like, nothing. Like, I don't I don't like I don't have a, like, a dock. I don't have a start menu equivalent thing or whatever. It's like, all I ever do is if I wanna run something, I can run I hit, like, you know,

19:21 hot keys, and, basically, I can launch things. This is just built into XSD. So if I wanna start an application, I can do it that way. But the vast majority of the time, I launch things from the from the terminal or whatever. I'm a very basic user in terms of, like, I don't do fancy like like, the way I do terminals is I just do tabs in a terminal browser. Like, I've never got on the TMUX train. I keep it very, very simple. The same thing with VIM. Like, I'm a diehard VIM user, but I don't like, I

19:54 never got on NeoVIM. Like, I just keep like, everything's just super basic or whatever. So it's like, all I ever really do in Linux is, like, for the most part, I'm running I have a terminal. I run my IDEs, which I use JetBrains for everything. Actually, I think I already have it running here. I use JetBrains for pretty much all of my development. And then for a browser, I oops. Where'd that go? Oh, yeah. It's over here on the screen. So for a browser let me put it over here. I actually use Edge, which is weird because I switched to Edge

20:33 in the last, like, six months to a year. I switched to Edge, and it was, in my story, there's, like, I've I've used Firefox forever. Like, I love Firefox. I hate Chrome. I've always hated Chrome for the same reason that, like, I don't like the fact that Chrome locks down the user experience. It's like, there's certain things you can't change. It's not as configurable, so I love Firefox. But Firefox has fallen behind Chrome for for some time now. Like, everyone develops for Chrome. So I've always been jealous of the Chrome users of, like, I kinda wish I could run

21:08 Chrome, but, like, Firefox was just fit my personality better. And then I discovered Edge, which this is one of the things I appreciate about Microsoft in general is, like, they make everything configurable. So I kinda get the compromise of, like it's not as flexible as Firefox, but they they allow you to tweak like, the out of the box experience, I think, with Edge is is horrific. But they allow you to basically, like, turn off all the features, tweak whatever you want. There's flags. You can find some setting. And so, like, I ended up with, like, this

21:41 is the Edge. Like, I actually like it. So I switched to Edge. And so it's like so my setup is, like, primarily, I'm running you know, I got a a terminal. I run IDE, and I have a web browser. Those are the main applications I use. And then what I found is, like, I don't really use any native Linux GUI applications. The only GUI applications I use are all proprietary. And it's like I just just over time, I've just realized this or whatever. So it's like because it's like, I'll run you know, it's like, I've got Slack,

22:17 Zoom. What are the other ones? Maybe Spotify, Discord. But, basically because, see, every single GUI application I run is proprietary. And, like, basically, like, you're you'll be extremely hard pressed, and let's see if anyone disagrees with me, to find a Linux GUI application that is in fact better than a Mac or Windows equivalent. Oops. Can I find that? No. Okay. So so it's like so this is, like, my kind of, like, my whole experience is, like, primarily, like, just in in these these apps. And I don't really do a lot. It's like I just program, and I'm on Twitter.

23:03 That's, like, my life on computers, basically. Okay. So so, like, this is my Linux setup. And so you can see, like, the so I've I I I got into the I see I have a a a panel up here. This is the XFCE panel. This is one thing I appreciate about XFCE is it's way more configurable than people think. Like, the out of the box experience with XFCE is kind of, like, archaic and weird and ugly, but you can very easily tweak it. And so this is the way I've done things. And so what I do is I perfectly

23:37 I make this this panel the exact same size as the window title, so it just kinda blends into it. So it's super slick. And I and I started doing this because of Ubuntu's Unity is I really like the way Unity would do this is they would blend the applications bars into the top. And so you get, like, the amount of screen real estate that's that's taken by, you know, the the bars or whatever is, like, almost nothing. So so I really liked this approach or whatever. And so that's how I've been been running, like, my XFC or whatever.

24:14 But yeah. So that's, my Linux setup, and I'll show you the Windows one instead or whatever. But it's like don't know if you have any, like, questions or you or anyone. Oh, people are asked, like, Bash or ZHS. I'm Bash. Like, I have just such a like, I don't understand why people like, I'm kinda curious of, like, why people like, one, most mapped users, as far as I know, use ESH because it's the default. The second reason people use ESH is because of the the fancy prompt command prompt. Like, you can do and you make it look pretty. Right? But you

24:46 can see, like, this is my command prompt. I just don't care. I don't get a significant amount of value out of customizing that. The the other thing, like, just kinda personalities wise is for me is, like, I'm really bad at organization. Like, there's a lot of, like, Linux users who love tiling window managers, and they're and they're a lot more I just feel like they're a lot more organized in how they approach things because it's like, oh, look. I put this app here, and I put this one here, and they're much more intentional. I'm not. I'm just like, the way I

25:19 work is, like, I'm constantly, like, opening up new windows and creating a couple more tabs, and I've got a couple part. So it's like, I love the chaos of a floating window manager. Although I I still do things like, you know, I can I can do tie you know, like, various types of tiling or whatever? Like, it's just built into XFZ. But what I've found over time from for myself is I don't find tiling to be valuable most of the time. Like, I just I don't know. I just don't. Because, like, the only time where, like, logically

25:54 tiling makes sense to me is development, but I'm also a I use IDEs. Like, I'm not like a like, there's a whole realm. You know, it's like Versus Code is, like, really editor plus plus, and so is NeoVim. It's like editor plus plus. And and so there's a lot of people who, like they like tiling, but those people who like tiling tend to gravitate also towards, like, NeoVim or or terminal based approaches where it's like an IDE just gives you the same thing as tiling. Right? It's like, I have an editor here. I have a terminal down here. If I really

26:27 want you know? So it's like, I still wanna be, like, used for it or whatever. Okay. So alright. I don't know. How many are, like, the exact opposite person? Like, 100%. Yeah. So that's so that's the thing is is, like that that's the thing about Linux is, like like, this is what kind of what I like about it, and it's like, this is my personality my personality, and this setup matches my personality, which is, like, completely opposite. And then what I found within the Linux community is I actually don't know many people who would agree with me. Within the Linux community,

27:06 it tends to go the other way of, like, people love, like, tiling window you know, Sutclast, like, all the like, DWM I three, those type of things, or they love TMux. And it's like so that's where it's like feel like, like, I don't fit in with the Linux users because I'm just like, no. I don't I don't like all that, like, geeky cool stuff, whereas most Linux users do. It's like they also like Mix. You know? They're like it's like Mix is like a engineer catnip. Like, it's just it's like, oh, it's cool. But Yeah. I can't go more than an

27:36 hour before trying to tweak something in my dot files, my Z shell config, my fish config, whatever, trying new software and just yeah. I spent 50% of my time doing some work in Fit to Fit, and my time just fucking around. Change So that's the thing is, like, I do that. Like so I'm constantly installing distributions, trying out things, like, fooling around with that, fooling around with Neo. Like, all of those things I do, but I typically do those in a virtual machine. So I don't screw with my, like, my because it's like I don't know. It's like,

28:07 I I gotta work. I have a boss. I have to deliver things. So it's like, I can't screw with my, like, my my default setup or whatever. But, like, I'm constantly so it's like, I've got VirtualBox, VMware, and Vert Manager all installed on this machine because different hypervisors seem to do a better job with different things. And so it's like I'm constantly running different, like, virtualization. I'm always trying out diff different distributions. But this is the this is what I stuck to. And so I started getting interested in Windows about well, it's been a couple years where I've

28:43 been kind of, like, theoretically like, I've been trying to see, like, can I move to Windows? Because I already know I can't survive in Mac, but, like, maybe Windows, could. And the reason why I started to, like, think about that is, like, the setup that I'm showing you is, like, the setup that I've had for over a decade. And the reason, like, is it works. It works extremely well for me. Like, I have no complaint. It just works, but that's also boring. It's like, I want shiny new things, but, like, whenever I try out shiny new things

29:14 in Linux, I can't find, like, I can't find a new thing that works for me. Like, when I started in Linux, like, I went through these these different eras of, like, I was using GNOME and KDE. I spent a lot of time in Ice WM, which is a very weird window manager. And then I spent a significant amount of time in enlightenment, like e 16. I so that was kinda like that was the peak of my Linux coolness was, like, e 16. But then, like, then I found x s like, and then I started fooling around with Unity,

29:48 and I actually liked Unity, although all of the Linux people hated Unity. I actually really liked it. So I liked Unity, and I had a weird, like, bastardized version of it because it was comp Compass under the under the hood. So it's like, you could do all the cool Compass stuff. And so it's like a kinda sorta ran Unity, but it was heavily tweaked with the Compass stuff, so it was completely different. But then Ubuntu abandoned Unity, which had the side effect of basically killing Compass. Is that how you say it, Hayden? I don't know how you say yeah. Yeah. It's

30:25 like had the side effect of basically killing that project. So then I was abandoned. I was like, well, crap. What am I gonna do going forward? And then so that's why I ended up switching to XFC. But but I've been basically stuck on x x so I spent all this time, like, switching my desktop environment. Well, once I found XFCE, and it's worked so well for me, it, like, kinda set the bar so high that whenever I try something else, it's just not as good. And then this is where my frustration with the Linux community now comes in.

30:52 It's like is the fact that, like, whenever things get to the point where they're like, oh, it's it it's almost there, they go and rewrite it. Like, that's what will happen with Gnome three. And then this is what's happened with PopOS. Was like, I was following PopOS where I'm like, PopOS is the new thing. Like, that's what I'm gonna end up switching to. Like, I wanna switch to PopOS because it was it was so good. They were doing such a good job. And then they're like, we're gonna rewrite it, which I'm like, fine. I understand. Gnome shell

31:19 is kind of a disaster. So, like, fine. Rewrite the shell. But now if you look at what the Cosmic Project is doing is they're rewriting everything. They have a new terminal. They have an editor. They have a and it's just like, holy crap. Like, no. Like, you're so close, and you're not like, are you gonna get there now? So that's where it's like, this is my frustration. It's just just like so I have a setup where it works extremely well, but as a nerd, I want something new, but I can't get something new because everything else sucks.

31:49 So it's like, I don't know what I know what to do. So, like, that's why I started looking at Windows where it's like, I don't know. Maybe I can get Windows to work. So what so Windows is your new DE? It is. So so let me show you. So I'll show you. So it's like, you know, you you've seen what my Linux environment looks like. So now so what I've done is oh, hopefully, this is still set up. Is so I have this I bought this. I started using Windows on my framework laptop, and then I just recently bought this Surface

32:15 laptop, and it's beautiful. This is an amazing laptop. I'm not much of a fan of the aluminum because it just makes it super heavy, but it has a very premium feel. So it's like if you like the feel of a MacBook, this is like a MacBook replacement. But the ARM processor is amazing in it. It's so cool. I've yet to really tap the powers of the AI stuff, the the built in MPU. But, anyway, so I bet so what I've done let me see if this is working right. Yeah. Have you done the benchmark share

32:50 on that Snapdragon chip? Like, does it actually compete with the m, the m three from Yeah. It Straight up does. Straight up does. Yeah. It does. Awesome. Pretty much all the promises where it's like performance wise, I think it like, there's m threes that are faster. Like, but for the most part, it's, like, between m two and m three. The battery life seems to be better than the Apple's from all the benchmarks. My personal experience is, like, I was on Intel devices for a long time or Intel chips or whatever. So, like, my last Intel was a twelfth gen Intel, which

33:25 apparently was the best one because after that, apparently, they've just gone to crap, like, reliability and stuff, I guess. But so I was on the twelfth gen Intel, and I switched to an AMD. The framework I have is an AMD, and I was blown away with the AMD processor. I'm like, this is way better than the Intel's. It was faster. The built in GPU is better. The battery life sucked, though. It's it's six hours, I get, if I'm lucky when I'm coding. Yeah. So it's like so, like, it was really cool. Like, the AMD was way faster,

33:57 but the battery life sucked. Okay. So now I switched to the Surface. The performance between the AMD and the Surface laptop is, like, negative like, I don't notice any difference. I'm guessing maybe the the the Surface is faster, but it's like like, I I wasn't I didn't feel like I was limited by the AMD, to be honest. Like, performance wise, I didn't feel like like, like, I got enough performance out of it. So I didn't feel like it was already so, like, with the Surface laptop and the the ARM processor, like, I also don't feel that way too. And I and I

34:29 have 64 gig of RAM. I can still run, you know, VMs and all this other stuff. And so I'm super impressed with performance. But then on the flip side is the battery glass. So it's like it's amazing. Like, you you can get like, if you're not coding, you know, whatever, you can get, like, I don't know, fifteen hours or something like that. I don't know. I do a very intensive development or whatever. And I don't know. I I I I get I get enough hours that I can go through a day without without really having to

35:00 charge it because I'm typically just sitting on a laptop. So, yeah, the laptop I have Is this not just fanless? If that's another picture of my framework, the fans are so noisy. Yep. Oh, yeah. The frame well, the framework, the the the it's noisy, and it's hot. Holy crap. That that thing is hot. No. So the surface, it's not fanless, but they they won't turn on for the I mean, like, they do turn on if you were really pegging it because, like, I do you know, it's a whatever. Was compiling the l LLVM from scratch the other day, and

35:32 that takes, like, hour. Well, I had a weird issue where it wouldn't. But but so it's like, you can turn the fans on, but they're pretty quiet. But the whole but, generally, the device is silent and cool. It's like it's not hot at all. It's a really impressive laptop. So I do have the the latest Surface. They call it the Surface Copilot Plus PC, which is terrible branding. But I have the the brand new latest one, the top of the line one, which was, like, at 64 gig. It's, like, the black the black, like, developer. There was a

36:03 special, like, brand new edition one or whatever. I don't like, when I bought it when I honestly, when I buy most laptops, I kinda just scale everything all the way up to the top. It's like, I want the fastest investment. I love that, but I'm gonna just say all developers is that we always go for the top of the line spec the excuse that Go does a good job of using all the cores in compilation. So although how often are you really compiling? But that's my excuse of why I need all the cores. Okay. So let me show you. So I'm

36:44 gonna switch over. So this should be on this side. Okay. So I this is RDP. I got an RDP set. Okay. So I'm doing remote desktop to that laptop so you can see my setup. Okay. So this is what again, so very similar setup. I use a black background. Like, I only work in black or very dark gray. And so what I've like, I have a very it's very similar minimal setup. Like, I don't like it's the same thing. It's like, don't like a doc or anything like that, so I just hide it. I never see the taskbar.

37:17 If I wanna switch between like, the I do the same thing in Linux. It's like, if I wanna find programs, I just alt tab, and then, you know, it's like if I want that so it's like that's how I know whatever I'm doing. Okay? So very minimal setup. So when I launch terminal, it just defaults oh, did this shut down? Oh, yeah. It probably shut down the it shut down hyper the w sub out too. It's normal. It doesn't take this long. So where the heck is this? Okay. So when I launch the terminal, I just get Linux.

37:51 So it's like, I have the ex like, I have the exact same, like, Linux setup here. So it's like so I just run Linux. So now when I go and I run so I don't I wouldn't typically click here or whatever. But but it's like so if I run, like I was saying, like, I use JetBrains tools. So when I go and I and I run I'll I'll click it down here. When I run JetBrains here, this is running in limit in in WSL two. It is not running natively on Windows. Like, I do nothing in Windows. Like, I just

38:25 like, everything is in is in Linux. Oh, yeah. I don't know why I did that. So so this is, like this is this is mind blowing to me. So this is they're doing remote desktop. So the way this works is they're they're running this is running through x Wayland. So I'm running x, which then goes through x Wayland, and then Wayland they then translate Wayland to RDP, and then they show RDP like, so this is technically like a like a windowless RDP screen sharing. Like, RDP has the ability, you know, to just do one window, like, not the whole

39:02 desktop. So it's like so the so this is the the crazy thing is, like, is there so many layers of madness going on here? But it works like, it's surprisingly responsive and works well and stuff. And so it's like, I'm doing my development in here. And it's like, I do notice if I switch from Linux to Windows is, like, the response time on this is slightly less. It's not enough that it's like it's not enough that, like, it causes a problem, but it's just like Linux and XFCE is so ridiculously fast. Like, the there's just really

39:38 not you know, so, like, response time is really fast. So I do notice, but, like, I don't have any so it's like so the way I work is, like so it's like my Windows setup here is oops. That's weird. Is is, like it's not really so it's, like, it's not really any different in that I've got I've got basically kind of the same things. I have a terminal. I have the browser, and, you know, and I'm using the exact same edge setup or whatever. So it's, like, the exact same experience, but I happen to be in in Windows. And, like, what I

40:11 was saying before is, like, GUI apps that I run, they tend to all be proprietary things. So all of all of those same apps that I ran in Linux, the exact same apps apps exist in Windows, but they happen to work better. But it's the exact same user experience and everything. So so oh, yeah. And then and then I set up this is this is PowerToys, PowerRun. This is how I run most everything in in in so it's, like, in in, let's see, in the what I was showing with in in XFCE, I use, like, these little launcher things, which

40:47 are ugly and but they're functional. But in Windows, basically, I use the PowerChoice run or whatever. So so I can run, you know, whatever. So, like, Slack, this you know, whatever. It's the same thing everyone has. So so the thing is it's like it's like, yes. This is technically Windows, but it's like, I never leave I never leave Linux. And and the other the other thing is so let me show. It's like, I have this kind of this setup where I run sync things that's syncing basically, like, my source directory. This is a weird arbitrary bins. And then, actually, my

41:24 my bash, I put all my, like, dot files in here, and that's the way I manage them or whatever. But so I have synced things that are syncing these files back and forth. So I develop on on my desktop in Linux, and then I just switch over to Windows, and I just pick up where I left off. Like, because everything is just syncing back and forth. And so it's like so this is thing. It's like, I've been blown away at, like at that, like I because, like, I really like my XFCE setup that, like, I mimic the exact same thing

41:56 in Windows, and I still get Linux. And, like and the cool thing about WSL two is, like, it's very open, the whole platform, where it's like, if I wanna do crazy weird things, like compile a custom kernel and do stuff like you can do it too. Like, they don't lock down anything. Like, it's all open. It's surprisingly open. So it's like, I can so it's like, my brain doesn't really know that it's Windows, and things just generally work better. And it's like so I don't know. So, like, that's that's this is, like, the setup that that I that I use or whatever.

42:31 And I don't know. I'm I'm pretty darn happy with the with the Windows. So it's like, I'll probably stick with this where it's like, I have Linux on the desktop and Windows on the laptop because from a laptop perspective, it just works significantly better. Like, I'll give you, like, another example of something that drives me nuts. It's like full disk encryption. On a laptop, I want full disk encryption because, like, I use it for work. It's a good security thing or whatever. Full disk encryption in Linux drives me nuts. Like, it because, like, it never, like, there's

43:02 always weird caveats and issues. So you can do, like, the full disk encryption, which which then Linux will require you to type a password on the boot manager, or you can do the, like, the home directory encryption, which is integrated with the login, but then there's other trade offs of performance and whatnot and what EcryptFS or whatever the current thing is. I I haven't been following it for a while. I don't know what the current way people are encrypting things. But, like, in Windows and Mac, it's like you just flip the setting, and it works.

43:32 It's like it's just on. Like so those are the things that, like, I like about, like, being like, in the Windows, there's, like there's all these things that that just kind of work that you forgot about in the Linux land. Like, I really like biometric login. So it's like that Surface laptop just does face ID. I open it up. It scans my face. I'm logged in. I never type my password. Like, I like fingerprint, and I try to use it in Linux, but it sucks most of the time. But it's like those things, they just work.

44:00 Like, they just work. And so it's like I I don't know. So Are you using Yeah. Sorry. How do you go? Are you using systemd and WSO? Yes. Because, like, you just can't avoid it. So I hate it. You can see, like I don't even know why I have Snap. Oh, what am I doing? Like, man, I feel bad. I almost always uninstall Snap, but there's oh, I know why. I was trying to do something with Chromium, and I I I found out that, like because this is an ARM laptop so Windows on ARM works surprisingly well. You

44:38 very don't really notice that you're using ARM, except for gaming. Gaming kinda sucks. But Linux on ARM, you run more issues. And so, specifically, the issue I found out when I switched to this is there's, like, no upstream support for browsers in Linux. So the majority of the time, I'm running the browser natively in Windows, but I have use cases where I need to run a browser in Linux. And so, like, that sucks. There's no upstream ARM 64 browsers that I'm aware of. You have to install open source stuff, and then then you have all other issues.

45:15 Yeah. Google Google Chrome for ARM, I think, is in beta. For for oh, really? Yeah. I'll check that out because, like I said, I would've for what because I was trying to do browser automation type stuff. And so for browser automation, Chrome is actually the desirable thing, but I couldn't even find Chrome. But maybe maybe if I went to the beta or developer channel or something like that because I couldn't find it. But Yeah. But, yeah, I do run system d, which is annoying, but not really. Because, like, the thing is is, like, as much as I complain about

45:46 system d, like like, all my complaints about system d are more of, like, I just think it's a terrible architecture and design. But, functionally, it works. Like, it works. And and and and the thing is, like, if you if you actually, like, drink the Kool Aid on system d and go 100% in on system d, it's a pretty slick system. It's just like as, like, a grumpy old Unix user, it's different. You know? So it's like it's hard to accept. But it but it you know, whatever. It works. So, like, it doesn't really cause much problems running

46:25 system d because system d is really lightweight in general. The biggest issue I ran into, but was I I got into some weird for some reason, system d was trying to manage my DNS, which was, like, the worst thing ever. But but I fixed that or whatever. So yeah. Oh, yeah. And I run I just I run Docker just directly in WSL. I don't use Docker for desktop. I don't understand the value of it on Window. Like, I just run Docker. So it's like whatever. But yeah. So it's like with WSL too, it's like you can do Docker and Kubernetes

46:58 and all your fancy stuff. Like, I was I was chatting with someone recently on Twitter about, like well, I went through, like, this short phase where I was trying to get Chrome OS to work. And so I have a Pixelbook, and I have, like, a high end Pixelbook. I was trying to get Chrome OS to work because I look because I was so excited about what they were doing with Crostini, which is their equivalent of WSL. It's like Linux inside of Chrome OS. But they totally botched it because they locked it down. Like, you cannot

47:28 screw with any of the Linux stuff. So they don't even allow real root, which just so it's like you can't run Kubernetes inside of the Linux that's on Chrome OS, whereas on WSL two, they do. And so, like like, those things just drive me nuts. Said, why'd you lock it down? But, anyways so it's like, I was really hopeful for Chrome OS because I really like the stuff they're doing. It's like, if you wanna see, like, the most bleeding edge crazy Linux stuff, Chrome OS is doing it. Like, they have like, the stuff they do with the kernel

48:01 and the security stuff is, like, mind blowingly cool, yet they screwed up the Linux user experience, which irritated me. Yeah. In 2020, I tried to go full Chrome OS, and I had nothing but pain with Christina. It's a good idea, but it was frustrating because Chrome OS is Linux. But then to do Linux, I have to put it through a virtual machine where the the there was not even any GPU support for, like, graphical apps or running Versus code, which is Yeah. Relatively slow. It was really frustrating. But I I love the idea of going all in on Chrome OS. And

48:37 I don't think I've ever really fixed that performance, at least not to my knowledge. And this is the weird thing is just, like, some of the best some of the best uses of Linux are from the proprietary people, which is weird. So it's like because you look at, like, the cool stuff that Chrome OS or Android does with Linux. And then, like, if you look at WSL, like, the stuff they're doing with WSLG, because they have GPU pass through support too, which is amazing. They're like, it's really geeky cool, like, the way they're doing the pass

49:03 through support and stuff. And then, like, on macOS, the way they did, like, the they they have support for within an ARM VM. You can what is it? You can run x 86 code through Rosetta. Like, they do some so it's like they're like, some of the coolest stuff is actually capping with the way, like, the kind of the proprietary people are are integrating with it. Yeah. It's a pretty compelling setup. Like, I may I I don't know if I could bring myself to do it, but I'm tempted to just for force myself on Windows 11 for

49:40 a little bit just because I want that that kind of vertical integration where things do just work. That's what I miss the most about Mac is that the same container's up with Docker Desktop, but you can get around that with with other things. But things just worked. And if I don't like it, because I feel like I'm it's like a it's like a thousand paper cuts. Like, nothing is gonna, like, scare me away, but actually, it would be nice to have a day without those paper cuts. But but when you think about the things those paper cuts that you run

50:07 into are, like they're not the core thing that you're using Linux. Like, well, I mean, I don't know. Whatever. If you if you just enjoy all the but it's, like, it's it's all these, like, kind of tangential little things, audio, screen sharing, you know, sleep, wake, Bluetooth. Like, screw Bluetooth. It just never works. I've just never ever gotten Bluetooth to work well in Linux, which is ironic because the the entire, like, Android Bluetooth stack is should be written in maybe they have a custom stack. Maybe that's what it is. I don't I don't know. But but when because I'm I'm kinda like,

50:44 I'm at the point, like so it's like, actively I, like, actively deter people away from from Linux. But, like because I don't try like, it's just a this, like, personal thing where it's like, I don't try to sell people. I'm like, look. You should use my setup. But I am curious of, like, specific you know, it's like, for someone who, like, just wants things just to work, it's like it's like, why would you not try WSL two? Because, like because you think about it from this perspective is is most people are on macOS. And so like, most developers are on macOS.

51:17 And what macOS did was, like, they gave you a terminal that's not Linux, but it's pretty darn close to Linux. And then the the the the the community bridge the gap with Brew and whatnot and brought all the Linux ecosystem to the, you know, Bock or whatever Darwin stuff. So it's like so you're getting this thing where it's like, was fully proprietary OS and then a terminal which is close to Linux but not exactly Linux, but you would most likely prefer to run a Linux terminal. Whereas Windows gives you kind of the same thing. But I think a lot of people

51:51 have just, Windows PTSD. It's just, like, twenty years of crap, and especially if you live through, like, Vista or Windows eight, which were just garbage you know, like, those things where they just really screwed it up. But, like, seven I think seven and eleven have been good. Like, 10 was alright, but I really like Windows 11. I think my challenge would be the lack of automation. I know they've got one get now, so, like, it's kinda like their version of. So this is actually so this is one thing that I've actually come to appreciate and like

52:24 is I use this this program called UniGit. So when it comes to Windows, the only way I install anything in Windows is through UniGit. And so you can go and you can search for whatever crap you want, like Steam. So and it will find it. And what this is doing is it's going across all the different ecosystems of Wingate, Chocolatey, Scoop. I have some turned off because I pretty much only care about Wingate and Chocolatey. But and so what I do is, like, I'll just pick the ones that are from Wingate. So then the cool thing is is

53:00 this I install everything through this, and then it's set up to auto update. So in the background, like, you can see, like, this weather there's errors. There's there it's trying to update something or whatever. So it will just auto update everything in the background. So it's just always upgrading everything. But then it has this thing where let me see if can find it. I think it's documents. Winget. Oh, yeah. So it's basically it's backing up all the packages that I have. So it's like, it has this if I open up this, this should go into VSCode probably.

53:43 So it has this thing which has all the packages that are installed. So if I go over to another machine, if I go to another machine, I just open up UniGet and then, like, just open up this file, and then it installs all the same applications. So so the thing is this, like, the you can you can 100 automate the setup of a Windows machine. The downside is it's primarily PowerShell, and I don't understand PowerShell. That is madness. It is it is so weird. I've tried. One day, maybe I'll learn it, but I just don't care to or whatever.

54:24 So that's what kinda sucks is if you wanna automate, you have to use PowerShell. Hayden, were you gonna say something? So UniGet is great, and it's awesome that it pulls from the various package managers available for Windows. But, yes, you're bringing up Dev Home. And Dev Home is building out its ability to import configuration files. They use a methodology called desired state configuration, DSC files. And these are now integrated with Winget and allow you to, basically, not only do what UniGet does, but you'll be able to go even further and, like, preset window settings and, like Yeah. Automatic

55:08 auto automatically set it. What what is that form? Yep. Yeah. Do you want me to take that one? Yeah. Go for it. Try to explain Dev Home. Dev Home is a all in one tool for getting started developing on Windows. It's from the same team that built WSL, terminal, PowerToys. It lets you monitor it gives you a dashboard for your GitHub repos, gives you resource utilization, allows you to create these machine configuration files, allows you to there's a currently a feature in beta that allows you to define dev environment with natural language, using open API key.

55:53 So you can actually go ahead and say, I'm gonna build, you know, this node app with this and this, and it will spin up a Docker container with everything preinstalled ready to go for you. It also has they've also migrated a number of tools that used to just be in power tools over into Dev Home. So they're now basically preinstalled on Windows through Dev Home. So so this, what people don't realize is, like, there's this within Windows, there's, like there apparently seems to be a group of developers or whatever who kinda, like, drank the Linux Kool Aid or

56:33 whatever. It's, like, all of the cool things that we've been doing in Linux of, like, declarative management of setting up our machines and stuff like that, they're they're supporting they're they're bringing it all over to Windows, but it's, like, it's going at the pay like, it's like, Dev Home, when they first announced it, was, like, was very underwhelming, and it's slowly getting better. And I expect to know because, like, the problem I have with Dev Home, the reason why I haven't got into it is, like because I'm I'm a super lazy person, and I and I

57:01 definitely don't wanna spend, like, a significant amount of time trying to learn, like, Windows specific things. So the cool thing about that I liked about UniGet was that, like, I can click and install packages, and then it backs up and restores the state. Whereas right now in Dev Home, the machine configuration is you've gotta learn this DSC thing, and I have yet to figure this out. Like, I like, you know, feedback for the Windows people or whatever is, like like, the it seems like, I don't understand. Like, maybe if you come from a Windows background, these

57:37 YAML files make sense to you or whatever, but they don't to me. And so I don't know how to, like, just type and create one, and then there's no tooling to create or manage them. So then it like, it's, like, a significant amount of effort of trying to do this this YAML based approach. But, anyways but it but it is but it is there or whatever. So it's like this is kinda like the the thing you know, it's like they're doing surprisingly good things, the the Windows team, to do that. So it's like you could

58:08 do it. But, like but, Hayden, but things that, like because things that do drive me nuts is, like, when I log in like, if I create a new Windows machine, it's like, I've gotta reconfigure the taskbar to be the way I want it to. There's there's, like, a handful of settings that I I I'll click around and and I'll I'll tweak. Like, not a huge amount of them. So it's like, it's not that big of a deal because I could do it really quickly. It's like, I know I want this, this, and this. But it's like, will it even manage those

58:34 things, like taskbar settings and It's it's getting there. You know, the thing the interesting thing about the team that that built WSL, PowerToys, Dev Home, Pseudo for Windows is that they're most of these projects are fully open source, and they're heavily community driven. So a lot most of the PowerToys have come from the community and get promoted and then included in PowerToys. And feedback on things like are pushing it along quickly. So, like, the ability to more easily create DSD files from your current install, that they've heard that feedback, and that's that's being worked on. So

59:26 it you know, when these things first, like, get announced at build, you know, you see the first draft, but they're really building in the open in contrast with, you know, where Microsoft would spend a lot of time and then announce it and then say this is just it, particularly this team at Microsoft. Yeah. Like, what I'm surprised with Microsoft is, like, the weird thing is, like, when I started in Linux, it was like Microsoft was the devil. Like, you hated Microsoft. Right? Like, they were anti open source. They were and, like and that that that

1:00:02 opinion has basically stuck with a lot of Linux people, which is like but, like, the weird thing is, like, in these days, if you look at the companies, Microsoft is actually the biggest, like, contri like, they're the most most embracing open source, I think, of any of the companies, like, going forward. Like, Google had a good run where they were, like, really big into open source, but I don't didn't seem like it financially really worked out with them that it seems like the tides are changing there. But, like, Microsoft is, like, all in because, like, I'm surprised at things where it's like

1:00:38 for example, like, they're they're like, you know, it took Microsoft apparently a couple decades to have a decent terminal, but they have a decent terminal now. That's what I was showing here. But it's like things like I I believe, like, terminal is completely open source. It is. So is sudo. So is power toys. Yeah. It it's like all of the new stuff that they're doing that I seem to care about is open source, which I love, because I can't stand it if I can't, like, you know, dig in and figure out how things work or whatever. But

1:01:12 but yeah. But, I mean, Microsoft just has, this unfortunately, they have to deal with their legacy of of, you know, some maybe some bad things or people not liking them or whatever. So Yep. And it not just on the, like, Windows dev experience either, but also in the AI space. Microsoft is constantly releasing new AI tools. I know you have some gripes about it, but things like the Onyx runtime I don't understand the ONNX. But yeah. I but, like, the yeah. Oh. Oh, I think we lost him. Yeah. He's at he's at Vienna right now. People

1:01:56 watching. But, like, I this doesn't need to be, like, a a like, we're I'm not trying to sell everyone on Windows or whatever. But, like but but it's, like, the the like, I wanted to do this of, like, show how I'm using Windows and and try to not lose my Linux street cred. Like, trust me. I'm still a die but it but it's been an interesting experience for me. And you I think it's I think it's just really interesting to see that workflow and how it works because, like I said, there are a lot of

1:02:25 paper cuts on Windows. Like, right now, I'm 95% running everything on Wayland, but then there's always that random x 11 application that has to run through x Wayland. Yeah. And that it looks weird. The scaling's different. And then there's even the fragmentation between you know, I run GNOME and GTK for most apps, but then a random QT app pops up, and that looks like dog shit too, and then I'm fighting with that. And Oh, yeah. And I and I'm just I I'm sorry. Like, I I hate the UX design of GNOME apps. I just cannot.

1:02:58 I think they are the most confusing. Like, I'm a very like, I like, anyone who's anyone who's worked with me on developing UIs for, like, our programs or apps and stuff like that knows how frustrated I get with UIs. Where where it's just like, I open it up, and it's illogical to me. And it's like, why? Why in the world did you put, like like, the way GNOME does their UX is basically, like, they just randomly throw icons in the top bar. It's just like random icons in the top bar, no description, don't know what they do. We have no

1:03:29 idea why in the world they're in the top bar, but they're they're just there. But, anyways But, like, Weyland Weyland is one of those things that irritates me too is is the fact that, like, every time I try to use Weyland, I run into issues. So it's like, you know, it's like, probably in another, like, five years, it will they've we'll finally ironed out everything. Like, I I think we're finally getting there. But you but you realize, has been in development for over ten years, I think. So it's like Yeah. So so this is what you have to

1:04:02 Challenges in Linux Desktop Development

1:04:03 get like, with Linux is, like, you gotta be in it for the long haul because it's, like, you know, it's it's not gonna be good for a couple decades. It's, like, it's literally how it's, like, it's literally, like, a decade for because, like, Gnome three, for example, was it was like, they started it, and it took about ten years for it to get back to the same level as GNOME two in terms functionality. And now within the last couple of years, like, GNOME three is actually really quite good. Like, it's really taken off in the last

1:04:30 couple of years. There was some point in, like, Fedora 38. I I can't remember which version. There's there's one version where it was very specifically, like, where it's like, oh, wow. Like, gnome has really gotten a lot better. Yeah. I mean, I'm I I definitely think gnome three is the way forward. KDE is really nice. I actually like what the dumbest version of plasma, but it's too for me. And I like I actually like gnomes UX with the buttons and the the the CSD and stuff like that. Yeah. But I'm I'm putting a lot of hope in

1:05:00 Cosmic right now. I'm really excited to see what they bring out. And but is still a huge pain point because, you know, as Flatpak takes like, Flatpak is secure. It is great. Is secure. It is great. But getting the two to work together, like, you can't have the one password desktop speak speak to the the CLI process when it runs on because of all the sandbox, and then they have to build all these different portals. But those are coming out. It takes five years per portal if you look at all the issues that are open. Yeah. Yeah.

1:05:29 Progress is so slow. So the the thing is because, yes, sir. Like, the problem with kinda, like, Linux community open source driven things is that, like, you know, open source is it's volunteers. Like, a real community of you know, so volunteers are gonna work on fun shiny things. They don't work on, like, the annoying little bugs. So it's like that's it's like you kinda have to have, like, a corporate like, a paid person to then squash all those little bugs. And so it's like that's why you like, you know, it's like Canonical did a decent job with, like, their thousand

1:06:01 paper cuts project and stuff like that of squashing all the little annoying things. So Cosmic, I think, has a decent chance of becoming good because there is a financial incentive for them to squash all those bugs. It's like to actually, like, pay developers and fix all those annoying little things that that drive people nuts because they need to sell hardware. So it's like, I I have a lot of hope in Cosmic. I unfortunately think they're making all the same mistakes that most engineers have done in this space, which is basically, you know, rewriting things that don't need to be rewritten,

1:06:05 Economics & Sustainability of Linux Desktop

1:06:41 like, taking on too much. They're, like, they're taking on so much that it scares me that I don't understand how they're gonna succeed because, like yeah. You you start to realize, like, the amount of stuff they they need to, like, by going this route of, like, having their own high like, their own text editor, their own terminal, their own whatever. It's a lot of work. It's like Yeah. But that I think the reason they're doing that, though, is that I just complained about how I run GNOME and QT apps annoy me. And they've probably came to the

1:07:13 same conclusion because Cosmic doesn't use GTK or QT. They built their own entire UI rendering layer. Yeah. But now they're built on other applications to use that layer, and it's So so this is so, you know, I mean, I'll see how it it it turns out because, like, basically, this is so I like, because Canonical did the same thing where there was, like, they're basically kind of like, screw the community. We're gonna build our own technology. Like, the thing that's weird is, like, the community seems to be much more accepting of the way System seventy six is going about

1:07:45 this, whereas Canonical did it. It's probably just personality and branding and whatnot. But so but Canonical did basically the same thing where they're like they're like, we're just gonna build our own thing, and that's what, like, Unity was. And they did Juju, and they've done a lot of Snap, a lot of projects, but they're just like, we're gonna do our own thing. And so the problem that happens is if you do your own thing and you don't get the community on board, the community is gonna end up destroying you. Like, because they can always like, over a

1:08:12 decade or whatever, they'll continue to grow to the point where it's like, now you're you've you've fragmented or whatever. So, like so I don't know what the like, I don't know why they needed to change GTK, but I do know on like, I can totally understand Gnome Shell had a lot of issues. But why GTK? Why the whole thing? Why a text renderer? I don't know. I mean, I'm sure there's tech but but the problem is, like so it's, I really hope because System seventy six is the only company I see in the Linux ecosystem that has any

1:08:40 chance of succeeding right now of, like, making the desktop usable. But, like, they're they're doing all the same things that everyone's done in the past that have kind of failed. So it's like, whatever. I mean, maybe they'll finally be the one that succeeds, and I really hope they do. I really like the, you know, the current version of PopOS. So if they can reproduce that with Cosmic but I've I've I tried Cosmic about every couple weeks or whatever because, like, they made it ridiculously easy to compile and run. And it's it's got a it's it's got

1:09:14 a lot of bugs. It's got a lot of bugs. Yeah. I mean, it's still really early. I mean, they only just added multi not multi monitor support, but the monitors have different scaling now, which I think is a really cool addition because not everyone that buys the same monitor twice if they have two or three or whatever. But but it's it's that typical engineer thing where it's like, oh, I'm gonna write this software, and you do the first eighty percent, and then you realize, like, the next 80% is where you spend all your time. It's

1:09:40 like, you you can get the vast majority of the features that are like, oh, yeah. Look. It's almost done. And then that that last bit of just ironing out all of the issues and stuff is, like, what takes a significant amount of time. And so they've spread themselves really thin with the amount of stuff where it's, like, the amount of like like, you don't realize how much effort like like, if you look at the the like, the notes app in macOS. The notes app in in Mac OS is amazing, the amount of functionality that's in there.

1:10:15 Like, try doing drawing on especially on your phone or whatever. Like so you don't realize, like, these, like, these bigger companies, the amount of effort in engineering they put into these dumb side things. Microsoft's a little different with Notepad, but they have a whole replacement for it that's coming very soon. Right? Like, aren't they finally replacing Notepad? But it's like but but the amount of effort they put into these these little things, it's, like, significant. And so it's like, I just I really think they've underestimated. But, hopefully, they prove me wrong. I mean, I want them

1:10:45 to prove me wrong because, like, that was what I was hoping on. And then I once I started trying out the alpha build, I got really disenchanted. Just like, oh, crap. They've got a long way to go. You know? Yeah. I I mean, I think it's gonna be amazing, but it is definitely still early. But they're rewriting it in Rust, which gets them a lot of kudos too. Right? So Yeah. I I honestly I always complain about Rust, and I'm like, I I always, like, crap on Rust nonstop on Twitter. But I think Rust is the

1:11:16 perfect replacement for the Linux user space of, like, we have all of this legacy GNU style c code, which, you know, I don't think a modern engine like, you have to be a very unique individual if you like that style and you wanna maintain that. Like so it's like, I'm all for bringing in kind of, like, new blood or whatever and just rewrite the whole Linux user space in Rust. It's a perfect fit because no other language is really a good switch from all this code that really kinda needs to be c or c plus plus or whatever.

1:11:48 It's like, you can't do it in Go. It just isn't it's not the right, you know. So, Rust, I'm I'm actually all for everyone doing all this this this stuff in Rust. So I'm I'm like, I I love all the the stuff that's that people have been doing. I think you've angered a few people by saying that System seventy six is the only I can't remember what your phrase was, but the only company that stands a chance. Well, who sat in the So Alan says that Canonical's at their biggest head count they've ever been. Oh, okay. Okay.

1:12:19 Let me let me let me defend here. And and so I I think his point was in response to, you know, the one, Linux is just volunteers because Oh. Oh. Yeah. Companies like Canonical, Red Hat, SUSE, you know, they're investing a lot in, you know, upstream things, system d, GNOME, the user experience. I mean, when I was at Canonical and even after then, there was an engineer who did a lot of work upstream in Gnome to improve performance and and squash bugs there. So that was his first point that that it's all volunteers. Yeah. And then Sure. Yeah. I mean, I

1:13:03 think it's a interesting sustainability question about whether or not 10 ish engineers like, should we should we generally follow what Canonical, Red Hat, SUSE, and others are investing in GNOME kind of in that direction, or should a small team break out and and do their own thing? And he he adds that he loves their that they're innovating on the desktop, but it's an interesting sustainability question in the long term. Yeah. And and and I think that because I I don't know. Like, canonicals like, I don't understand canonicals, like, what's going on with the with the desktop

1:13:46 there because it's like, they scaled back significantly in terms of, like I don't know. So, I mean, it it Alan does Alan work for for for for Canonical? I think he used to. Previously did. We worked together. Oh, no. You used to work for him or whatever. Where it's like you know, it's kind of like they they they're no longer, like, leading because I don't like, because Ubuntu is no longer I don't I don't really it's like Ubuntu still has the most practical polish of, like, because they still seem, like, hardware compatibility, like, squash. So Ubuntu is still doing all

1:14:27 the grunt work, but they don't have, like, the best out of the box experience anymore where other distributions have, like, start like, because it used to be, like, Ubuntu. Like, every new version, it was kind of, like, exciting about how the desktop is changing. And Fedora has really taken over that, where, like, Fedora is now the gold standard of the, really, the GNOME experience, But we're I think Fedora fails is is in of all of those tiny little, like, kind of paper cuts that canonical addresses. And that's why I stuck with with Ubuntu is because for the most part, it just

1:15:03 works. Like, it's it's pretty hands off. You can just stick an LTS, you know, keep auto upgrading the system, you know, the system packages, and and it works. So What what I Yeah. And I and I don't speak for canonical. Yeah. But what I see happening is, you know, Unity desktop was very popular, but they ultimately made the economic decision to shift and kind of follow the pack and be more consistent with with the other distros and then bring their polish to that. So for example, it's not default. It's not gonna be the same default

1:15:41 GNOME setup. It it still has the dash to dock extension preinstalled. It has its own it has a brand new out of box installer that's Flutter based, actually. You know? And and at a certain point, like, there's certain things that just aren't, like, super exciting. But, like, it's got one click active directory join when you set up a new Oh, next. So just that. I was I was very impressed with the active directory join that they that I was just installing. Because I just installed 202404 on on something or whatever. So I don't know. You know, it's like

1:16:15 it's kinda weird because it's like I I just don't get the impression, but but maybe I'm wrong. It's like because the there's kind of, like, no active marketing. Like, I feel like canonical is is kinda stopped trying to get desktop users. Like, I just don't see the active whereas, like, system 76 is making a bigger deal about it or whatever. So it's like so because, you know, like, Linux is at a, you know, a very small percentage of of the mark. So it's like, how to get it to a larger market of people. I don't I think I I think that's

1:16:57 partly just from our place as as geeks. You know, we see systems at v six. We see framework. But what we don't see and, you know, you talk about Ubuntu's kernel support is Ubuntu is one of the few companies who are partnering with the hardware companies and shipping Ubuntu certified hardware. So while yes. Framework is great. Love system 76. In terms of scale, in terms of actually who's still shipping the most Yeah. You know, Linux workstations and laptops through Lenovo, through HP, through Dell, you know, it's it's still Ubuntu. And that's that's where the hardware

1:17:43 support comes from. Is that is those is those prerelease units, you know, going to Ubuntu and then enabling those and certifying them prior to release. But, like, I I don't see Ubuntu changing the trajectory. I think that's, like, the it's like, you know, maybe it's a slow growth business over over time or whatever. It's like, I just don't see it changing the land. It's just I don't know. There's just nothing of, like, why why would the Linux desktop, like, more people switch to it? I don't know. It's it's it's a weird like, like, at least, like

1:18:26 yeah. Because, I mean, there's there's kind of zero chance that, like, Linux will ever be super popular with a a consumer a large consumer base because it's just, at this point in time, like, why most people aren't are going away from laptops. Like, a lot of people don't even own a laptop, so it's like why so I don't know. I guess you can almost look at it from a, like, a doomsday perspective there. Like, it's a dying market anyways, and so Ubuntu will just continue to con to grab whatever they can out of it, and there's just no shop for anyone.

1:18:55 I don't know. Well, I mean, Ubuntu is still the default on the major clouds. You know? It's still Oh, no. No. I mean, that that's a whole different deal. Because, like, that's that's why I feel like is is that that canonical. Like, I'm not, like, pessimistic on canonical in general. I think the desktop, the on the lap laptop, I think because they've clearly you know, they they have the server side, and I feel like canonical has put a lot of effort into the IoT, you know, smart device and stuff like that, and so they have a good business there.

1:19:25 Like, their ARM support like, they were always the best for ARM support. So it's, like, Canonical in general. I think these other areas is, like, really it's like, I use Ubuntu like, that's the only distribution I really actually use. It's like going going to the cloud, desktop, whatever, whereas, you know, with all of these. Yeah. Yeah. Let's tackle something that George has brought up now. So he he said that we've not talked about economics, which is true. And then he also says that we're terrible customers. And now you're using Windows, which is a paid for operating system and

1:19:46 The Economics of the Linux Desktop: Terrible Customers?

1:20:00 a ton of proprietary software of which you're probably paying for. But he's right. Like, where is the money flowing into Linux? Like, I'm not paying for GNOME. I'm not paying for, you know, my Silver Blue install. Like, is is this an economic problem? Like, should we be paying up more money for a better Linux desktop experience? Well, I mean, obviously, yeah, it'd be great if people pay, but, like, the but the thing is is nobody pays for an OS, really. So, I mean, that's kind of the that's the basic problem where it's like, sure. Like, all of you can get all the

1:20:31 Linux nerds out there to feel guilty and pay money or, you know, we wanna help the world to pay money, but it doesn't really matter because the the rest of it like, it's not it's not enough money. Like, the larger market of people like, so it's like it's a weird thing that's happened with the entire software industry or whatever. It's like you don't make money on software. You just don't. Like like, there's of of course, the legacy people, like, the the old proprietor, you know, Oracle or whatever who are still printing money off of software.

1:20:56 But, like, the majority of software development these days is, like, you don't make money off of it, and it's like the and and ironically, the most challenging, difficult the hardest technical problems you can solve in software is all given away for free now. It's all done in open source, and there's zero value to it. So it's like, it's this weird thing. It's like, well, should you be paying for it? It's like, yeah. But, like, nobody pays for it. So, like, why do like yeah. Enter. No. But these guys are, like, basically it's like the yeah. I mean,

1:21:31 yeah, Valve and and Adobe. It's like it's the thing it's like the the same people who have always been make making money off of software are still making but, like, anything that's, like, new. Yeah. I mean, I think we also have to accept that the quality of the software is different. Right? When I was on a Mac, I was paying for Raycast, which is probably the greatest launcher and the only piece of software I generally miss from my Mac. And I paid for monthly subscription. And I look at my Linux app, and I don't think there's any software I'd probably

1:22:00 even pay for just because they're not as good. And I don't know if that's because they're all contributed to by volunteers and time is limited and such. Yeah. But nobody's ever entered, like, the actual proprietary software thing. So I think you're right to say there's no money in software, especially in a Linux ecosystem, but it doesn't mean that there shouldn't be longer term. The there's this this kinda sad, like, reality with open source stuff where it's like people spend a lot of time in open source developing. And so they're like, well, I should be compensated for that time. So they kind of

1:22:32 they said, look. My time should be worth this much. Therefore, you should be paying for that. But, like, unfortunately, it's like that's not the way, like, I don't know, economics works or whatever. It's like, what you'll find is if you take your software that you've been giving away from free, like, make it proprietary and say you have to pay $5 and see how many people will pay for it. Not many people will will pay for it because they don't value it. That's unfortunate. Like, that's the unfortunate reality is, like, people will use software that's free,

1:22:59 but as soon as you have to pay for it, like, they they they won't. And but it really does come down to the fact that they don't get enough value out of it to pay for it. Well yeah. And the thing is is right now, the number one customer who pays for Linux, even on Linux on the desktop, is enterprise. And as long as that continues, with maybe the exception of, like, system 76, as long as that continues, it's going to be their issues that get prioritized. Yeah. I mean, that's just it. That's just it. So,

1:23:36 you know, when I started Penguin Linux, which was bespoke WSL distro for WSL, you know, we we charged 5. I think the it's now 10. But we basically offered a social contract with our customers where, yes, we know you could go download Debian or Ubuntu for free, but give us $510 for this. We give you best effort support, and, you know, we we make all these cool customizations optimized for WSL. This was also WSL one days when you needed a lot of those. And, basically, we were committed to what the community wanted who'd who'd who'd paid for it. And

1:24:23 we were able to do that by putting it in the Microsoft Store. And as Alan brings up, right now, there's really no way to do that for Linux end user software. There's there's I mean, it's just not possible. Yeah. With the Mac, you've got the you've got the Mac App Store, Windows you've got the Windows App Store at Linux. I know George says that they're working on FlatHub support and payments. But Yeah. But, like but it's it's very tricky of, because it's, because if you build up an open source software and then you accept accept

1:24:59 expect people to pay after the fact, like, it's like it's been open source, and then that like, people most likely won't pay. You know, it's like, it works better if, like, you know, it's like you're kind of charging from day one. You've you set that expert. I don't know. It's like charging for open source software is extremely difficult. I mean, it's that's why, like, the startup I'm currently in, the startup previously did, we we do open source software. Like, I love open source. But selling it is it's a very difficult, tricky thing. Yeah. I don't know. Like, I I I don't

1:25:34 think because it's, like, going back to, like, what I was saying before is, like, why I thought, like, set system 76 had, like, the best chance or whatever is, like the reason why I I I put most of is because they're selling hardware. It's like that's that's the biggest thing. But, you know, maybe Canonical can do it with partnering with people, but it's still there's this weird thing that I don't think I don't think the hardware vendors are incentivized enough to make like, they're kind of too much in bed with with Windows that I don't know. Maybe it's not true.

1:26:04 But, like, I don't know if things that are really incentivized enough to make Linux good on their devices. But ThinkPads, they do it. Like, ThinkPads are amazing with Linux. Yeah. And and there's there's some, you know, $4,050,000 dollar, you know, ML workstation that from Lenovo that Oh. Come with Ubuntu. So, I mean, it it goes all the way up up up the market. So Yeah. But it's a tough it's a tough it's a really tough business. So I definitely would not wanna be in. Yeah. I mean, I worked at SUSE for a while or whatever. It's, like, just seeing, like, the whole

1:26:41 Linux business. It's a very it's a tough business. It's because, like, the most most Linux companies, what they're selling is certification. It's hardware certification or compliance, like, with with that's that's really what they're selling. It's it's, you know, because that's what people require you know, so they're, like, not really selling the the software because it's all open source and commoditized and freely available, but, like, companies need the certification and stuff or whatever. You know? And it yeah. It's a it's a weird thing. Yeah. The support, the FIPS certification Oh, yeah. Those kind of thing. Yeah.

1:27:24 It's like that's what people end up paying for. But yeah. I don't know. What's been Well It's been fun. I'm sure it pissed off enough people. Yeah. We've gone way over what we intended to do, but, you know, I think we've had some good discussions. Yeah. There's there's a lot of work that needs to go for Linux to have that year of of the desktop. I think you should abandon your AI project and go build a software store for for Linux now. This is this is the thing. It's like, I often think about, you know, it's like

1:27:31 Conclusion & Future Outlook

1:27:55 if I had Russian cosmonaut money, would I would I, like, defy like, because I love the Linux desktop, and I would love to fix it. I would love to, like but it's like, is it even worthwhile? I don't know. One one of these days. Yeah. I think I think we'll leave it we'll leave it there. That's just that to be continued. So I slip back in, like, six months or twelve months and and and see if things have improved. But Yeah. And I I'll tell you how terrible Windows is, and now I'm back on, you know, I'm

1:28:25 sure we'll get a tweet for it in two weeks when you you jump back onto Windows or Linux or Mac or whatever. Yeah. Do have a rotation. So it's We could do we could do a follow-up the follow-up on Android and iOS. It's it's all the same it's like all the same things there. Right. Awesome. Oh, well, thank you both for joining me. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for everyone on the chat for your contributions. Al and George, I'll reach out to you. I'm sure we should set up another session. You know what to share as well. Of

1:28:55 course. Yeah. I'd love I'd love to get in have a conversation with them about because I I really love what he's doing and, like, their their their stuff there. Yeah. Alright. I'll catch you all later. Have good day. Bye.