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> > We’ve reached a point where an update to macOS — or to any app I rely on, really — is a source of dread rather than excitement. I now expect the new version

> > We’ve reached a point where an update to macOS — or to any app I rely on, really — is a source of dread rather than excitement. I now expect the new version to be worse. You know what software doesn't fill me with dread to update? FOSS. Proprietary software isn't built for users anymore. But (some) FOSS still is.

zem 2mo ago
> You know what software doesn't fill me with dread to update? FOSS. speak for your clearly non-pulseaudio-using self (:
- altruios 2mo ago
  pulse audio's pain points were in setup for me, and in setup alone. using it has been a breeze.
  - zem 2mo ago
    an update last year broke some laptop microphone settings that in 30 years of using linux I had had no reason to even know existed. took me literally a couple of weeks to figure out what was going on and fix it. it was admittedly the first time in many years that it broke anything, but when it did it did so in style.
- murderfs 2mo ago
  And also clearly not a GNOME user...
  - overfeed 2mo ago
    It's no coincidence that PulseAudio and Gnome are Pottering-authored/Pottering-adjacent software.
    - readread 2mo ago
      Anything with the Red Hat stink, these days. Which, yeah, a lot of that’s Poettering. If they haven’t been executing a plan to make it extremely painful to maintain a distro that differs significantly from whatever Red Hat’s preferences and ways of operating are (so, making it harder to justify anything but “screw it, we’ll just use red hat, everyone else is just the same thing but with less ability to steer the direction of the OS”), damn the effects on UX, the traditional modular nature of Linux systems, and general open source ecosystem health… well, they’ve sure done a great job of it, so it’d be pretty crazy if that isn’t what they’ve been doing.
      - ajnin 2mo ago
        Latest venture of the ilk behind all that : device attestation for Linux (Amutable). Yes, they clearly have an agenda and are being quite successful at pushing it.
        account42 2mo ago
        Also Wayland with its mobile OS restrictions model that is entirely inappropriate for a free software desktop.
  - account42 2mo ago
    Or a KDE user... For some reason they just can't help themselves from "improving" the themes that people are already using instead of creating new ones that people can choose if they want extra white space or whatever is hip now.
- mort96 2mo ago
  Pulseaudio has been painless for like a decade and a half. Yes, it has a rough start and was probably made default in many distros before it ought to, but it's fine.
  - greatgib 2mo ago
    Pulse audio is ok until you plug or unplug things like earpieces and bluetooth speakers and then you want to do a videocall and random devices are the active ones. And then you find no obvious way to be able to record both input and output...
    - unknownfuture 2mo ago
      Lol because that never happens on any other OS. Plug my Mac into my dock, uses my DAC. Great. Unplug. Connect Bluetooth headphones. So far so good. Plug back into dock. Now it's... the built in audio? Huh? I'm honestly surprised how often in Linux PA with WirePlumber just does the right thing most times, IME.
      - zx8080 2mo ago
        MacOS is the worst. I got to reconnect my bose bluetooth headset 3-4 times every time I have a zoom call because no sound. On contrast, my linux laptop does not have any issue with the same headset and it gets connected instantly.
        windexh8er 2mo ago
        This is my Monday morning dance of Bluetooth. 99% of the time I'll join a call and everything is connected, line levels are set and yet... No audio. I know people complain about Pulse but MacOS is just as bad and, seemingly, getting worse. I'll take a Linux distro any day of the week.
        manquer 2mo ago
        Perhaps the parent poster user AirPods. Those in contrast would seamlessly switch between your iPhone and MacBook . Apple more or less by planned design nowadays work seamlessly with their own products and their support for other devices is patchy .
- marcosdumay 2mo ago
  Good thing that Debian pushed that thing into "non-core compatibility tools" status. It and NVidia drivers were always the things that made upgrading risky. Relatedly, systemd stopped breaking a while ago. Either distros stopped keeping it up-to-date or people can learn.
- leni536 2mo ago
  Use pipewire and its pulseaudio facade.
  - Chu4eeno 2mo ago
    Last I tried that (because everyone claimed it was magically better at everything) sound just randomly broke (I had no idea why, debugging pipewire is a nightmare), and since I switched back to pulseaudio everything just works again (and seems to use less CPU, but that could be selective memory). Maybe I'm just old and grumpy, but we spent decades hammering out all the incorrect (for pulseaudio) assumptions in every layer of the stack and papered over impedance mismatches, and then people decide to rewrite from scratch again (though I'll admit I was a vocal pro-dmix anti-pulseaudio hater for a long time).
    - leni536 2mo ago
      I have the opposite experience, in particular with bluetooth audio. YMMV
behnamoh 2mo ago
> You know what software doesn't fill me with dread to update? FOSS. As someone who's been burnt several times with CachyOS (Arch) updates, I don't think this is true.
- QwenGlazer9000 2mo ago
  Arch users are basically beta testers. Near same day updates with upstream.
- bhaak 2mo ago
  Arch is bleeding edge. Breakage is expected there. It breaks so others can be stable. Thank you for your service.
  - Gigachad 2mo ago
    So many Linux user problems are self inflicted. It’s almost a demonstration why proprietary platforms limit your options so much when users choose to shove a stick in their bike spokes and complain it let them do that.
    - behnamoh 2mo ago
      Nope, we're talking about updates to the OS, not users messing around and shoving a stick in their bike spokes.
      - voakbasda 2mo ago
        Choose a niche distro, deal with niche update issues.
        j16sdiz 2mo ago
        Choose a major distro, deal with poettering non-sense.
  - unsungNovelty 2mo ago
Citizen_Lame 2mo ago
Richard Stallman was right all along.
amrit3128 2mo ago
Exactly, though it's mostly community software and not corporate backed oss. Zig has been taking an interesting direction, emacs is still getting features after 50 years, ladybird is turing out nice, and a ton of other things
dosisking 2mo ago
Updating glibc is a huge pain. Using a new version of gcc or clang can cause a lot of problems. I try to avoid updating those.
- consp 2mo ago
  I've had plenty of issues with old bundled GCC compilers which were fixed in later versions. I'm feeling this is a psychological thing, not necessarily software related. (Doesn't invalidate the feeling though)
- Chu4eeno 2mo ago
  It has to be a pain, everything depends on them (or rather, should, you still have holdouts like go fucking up things like NSS, holding back posix_spawn etc.). In their defense the people working on glibc and gcc are pretty intelligent and spend a lot of time thinking about how everything they do affects their users, though they make mistakes like all humans (and LLMs I should say by now).
daemin 2mo ago
Ubuntu is still annoying with it's daily popups asking to update the system and then most times requiring a system restart. In some ways it is worse than Windows.
- antsar 2mo ago
  If you want Ubuntu without the annoying, that's Debian.
  - daemin 2mo ago
    I will probably be installing that on my servers soon. Luckily I don't need to use it as a desktop machine any more.
- SapporoChris 2mo ago
  Software & Updates->Updates->Automatically Check for updates:{Daily,Every two days,Weekly,Every Two Weeks,Never} and Security Updates{Display Immediately,Download Automatically,Download and install automatically} There are even more options you can select.
vitally3643 2mo ago
I felt like I got slapped in the face when I updated Audacity to see a goddamn cloud login service for the audio equivalent of Notepad.
- Tanoc 2mo ago
  Tenacity was developed because of that one Tantacrul video where he accidentally revealed that Audacity was going to start telemetry. Audacity tried to claim it was just basic stuff like OS version and hardware, then realized that people were still angry and decided to just push as far as they could. That video was like their turning point. The fact that even Audacity could fall to that showed a lot of people that even the basic stuff nobody ever thinks about can turn into something imposing and hostile.

zem 2mo ago

> You know what software doesn't fill me with dread to update? FOSS. speak for your clearly non-pulseaudio-using self (:

altruios 2mo ago
pulse audio's pain points were in setup for me, and in setup alone. using it has been a breeze.
- zem 2mo ago
  an update last year broke some laptop microphone settings that in 30 years of using linux I had had no reason to even know existed. took me literally a couple of weeks to figure out what was going on and fix it. it was admittedly the first time in many years that it broke anything, but when it did it did so in style.
murderfs 2mo ago
And also clearly not a GNOME user...
- overfeed 2mo ago
  It's no coincidence that PulseAudio and Gnome are Pottering-authored/Pottering-adjacent software.
  - readread 2mo ago
    Anything with the Red Hat stink, these days. Which, yeah, a lot of that’s Poettering. If they haven’t been executing a plan to make it extremely painful to maintain a distro that differs significantly from whatever Red Hat’s preferences and ways of operating are (so, making it harder to justify anything but “screw it, we’ll just use red hat, everyone else is just the same thing but with less ability to steer the direction of the OS”), damn the effects on UX, the traditional modular nature of Linux systems, and general open source ecosystem health… well, they’ve sure done a great job of it, so it’d be pretty crazy if that isn’t what they’ve been doing.
    - ajnin 2mo ago
      Latest venture of the ilk behind all that : device attestation for Linux (Amutable). Yes, they clearly have an agenda and are being quite successful at pushing it.
      - account42 2mo ago
        Also Wayland with its mobile OS restrictions model that is entirely inappropriate for a free software desktop.
- account42 2mo ago
  Or a KDE user... For some reason they just can't help themselves from "improving" the themes that people are already using instead of creating new ones that people can choose if they want extra white space or whatever is hip now.
mort96 2mo ago
Pulseaudio has been painless for like a decade and a half. Yes, it has a rough start and was probably made default in many distros before it ought to, but it's fine.
- greatgib 2mo ago
  Pulse audio is ok until you plug or unplug things like earpieces and bluetooth speakers and then you want to do a videocall and random devices are the active ones. And then you find no obvious way to be able to record both input and output...
  - unknownfuture 2mo ago
    Lol because that never happens on any other OS. Plug my Mac into my dock, uses my DAC. Great. Unplug. Connect Bluetooth headphones. So far so good. Plug back into dock. Now it's... the built in audio? Huh? I'm honestly surprised how often in Linux PA with WirePlumber just does the right thing most times, IME.
    - zx8080 2mo ago
      MacOS is the worst. I got to reconnect my bose bluetooth headset 3-4 times every time I have a zoom call because no sound. On contrast, my linux laptop does not have any issue with the same headset and it gets connected instantly.
      - windexh8er 2mo ago
        This is my Monday morning dance of Bluetooth. 99% of the time I'll join a call and everything is connected, line levels are set and yet... No audio. I know people complain about Pulse but MacOS is just as bad and, seemingly, getting worse. I'll take a Linux distro any day of the week.
      - manquer 2mo ago
        Perhaps the parent poster user AirPods. Those in contrast would seamlessly switch between your iPhone and MacBook . Apple more or less by planned design nowadays work seamlessly with their own products and their support for other devices is patchy .
marcosdumay 2mo ago
Good thing that Debian pushed that thing into "non-core compatibility tools" status. It and NVidia drivers were always the things that made upgrading risky. Relatedly, systemd stopped breaking a while ago. Either distros stopped keeping it up-to-date or people can learn.
leni536 2mo ago
Use pipewire and its pulseaudio facade.
- Chu4eeno 2mo ago
  Last I tried that (because everyone claimed it was magically better at everything) sound just randomly broke (I had no idea why, debugging pipewire is a nightmare), and since I switched back to pulseaudio everything just works again (and seems to use less CPU, but that could be selective memory). Maybe I'm just old and grumpy, but we spent decades hammering out all the incorrect (for pulseaudio) assumptions in every layer of the stack and papered over impedance mismatches, and then people decide to rewrite from scratch again (though I'll admit I was a vocal pro-dmix anti-pulseaudio hater for a long time).
  - leni536 2mo ago
    I have the opposite experience, in particular with bluetooth audio. YMMV

behnamoh 2mo ago

> You know what software doesn't fill me with dread to update? FOSS. As someone who's been burnt several times with CachyOS (Arch) updates, I don't think this is true.

QwenGlazer9000 2mo ago
Arch users are basically beta testers. Near same day updates with upstream.
bhaak 2mo ago
Arch is bleeding edge. Breakage is expected there. It breaks so others can be stable. Thank you for your service.
- Gigachad 2mo ago
  So many Linux user problems are self inflicted. It’s almost a demonstration why proprietary platforms limit your options so much when users choose to shove a stick in their bike spokes and complain it let them do that.
  - behnamoh 2mo ago
    Nope, we're talking about updates to the OS, not users messing around and shoving a stick in their bike spokes.
    - voakbasda 2mo ago
      Choose a niche distro, deal with niche update issues.
      - j16sdiz 2mo ago
        Choose a major distro, deal with poettering non-sense.
- unsungNovelty 2mo ago

Citizen_Lame 2mo ago

Richard Stallman was right all along.

amrit3128 2mo ago

Exactly, though it's mostly community software and not corporate backed oss. Zig has been taking an interesting direction, emacs is still getting features after 50 years, ladybird is turing out nice, and a ton of other things

dosisking 2mo ago

Updating glibc is a huge pain. Using a new version of gcc or clang can cause a lot of problems. I try to avoid updating those.

consp 2mo ago
I've had plenty of issues with old bundled GCC compilers which were fixed in later versions. I'm feeling this is a psychological thing, not necessarily software related. (Doesn't invalidate the feeling though)
Chu4eeno 2mo ago
It has to be a pain, everything depends on them (or rather, should, you still have holdouts like go fucking up things like NSS, holding back posix_spawn etc.). In their defense the people working on glibc and gcc are pretty intelligent and spend a lot of time thinking about how everything they do affects their users, though they make mistakes like all humans (and LLMs I should say by now).

daemin 2mo ago

Ubuntu is still annoying with it's daily popups asking to update the system and then most times requiring a system restart. In some ways it is worse than Windows.

antsar 2mo ago
If you want Ubuntu without the annoying, that's Debian.
- daemin 2mo ago
  I will probably be installing that on my servers soon. Luckily I don't need to use it as a desktop machine any more.
SapporoChris 2mo ago
Software & Updates->Updates->Automatically Check for updates:{Daily,Every two days,Weekly,Every Two Weeks,Never} and Security Updates{Display Immediately,Download Automatically,Download and install automatically} There are even more options you can select.

vitally3643 2mo ago

I felt like I got slapped in the face when I updated Audacity to see a goddamn cloud login service for the audio equivalent of Notepad.

Tanoc 2mo ago
Tenacity was developed because of that one Tantacrul video where he accidentally revealed that Audacity was going to start telemetry. Audacity tried to claim it was just basic stuff like OS version and hardware, then realized that people were still angry and decided to just push as far as they could. That video was like their turning point. The fact that even Audacity could fall to that showed a lot of people that even the basic stuff nobody ever thinks about can turn into something imposing and hostile.