@rl_dane

Linux is primarily a tool for fortune-500 companies first, and end-users like thee and me, last.

Given the fact that most Linux contributors are on a corporate payroll, no surprise.

Computing as we knew it, is dead. The future has been robbed from us.

@jns

OBI-WAN: That boy was our last hope.
YODA: No. There is another.

I mean, there's always the BSDs, Haiku, heck, the Commodore 64 is back, so anything can happen. ;)

@rl_dane Hah :) Haiku gives me some hope. They do actively resist the ai nonsense, so far,...

The c64 might be the better way to go :D

Anything that needs to be general purpose enough to work with modern hardware is always going to be disadvantaged by having to reverse engineer proprietary drivers and hardware.

There used to be enough people to somewhat keep up with that, and some shift in mentality at the manufacturer side to be a bit more reasonable with providing open drivers and/or documentation, but in the past few years or so, none of that is true anymore.

I am seeing projects long considered stable fall apart due to losing maintainers left and right, and projects that are still alive get flooded with new developers pushing bad practices as if it were a personal crusade. The software landscape in general seems to be slowly unraveling into complete dysfunction.

Sticking with an as-simple-as-possible stack where all parts can be maintained by one person seems like the most reasonable way out of the mess. (there's more capable options other than a c64 these days though ;) - reviving something like Wirth's project oberon on a somewhat more modern fpga would be a fun start.. )

@DrInterpreter @jns @rl_dane It seems so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQPNyQmvOIQ

@DrInterpreter @AnachronistJohn @jns

@AnachronistJohn @jns @rl_dane I'm looking for an AI-free, secure OS that will let me pretend to be on Windows when I need to and still run ad blocking Chromium browsers, Zoom and solid free video editing.

I think all three major BSDs can run Chromium. I know for certain #OpenBSD can, pretty sure #FreeBSD can as well. My experience with #NetBSD is very limited, though, but probably.

As far as zoom, I'm afraid that's currently out of the picture on the BSDs, to the best of my knowledge. They used to have a web app, but I think that's gone, as well.

Among the Linux distros, Gentoo seems to have a pretty strongly anti-AI stance.

@rl_dane @DrInterpreter @AnachronistJohn @jns

As far as zoom, I'm afraid that's currently out of the picture on the BSDs, to the best of my knowledge. They used to have a web app, but I think that's gone, as well.

Last I checked, the linux zoom client can run in FreeBSD's linux emulator, and it's packaged, but it has no audio. It is possible to use it for video and use the zoom dial-in option for audio however.

@trashheap @DrInterpreter @AnachronistJohn @jns

Oof, that's rough, but better than nothing, I guess.

I guess we should be thankful that the proprietary zoom app even has a linux build. :P

Is the zoom web client truly gone?

@rl_dane @DrInterpreter @AnachronistJohn @jns

The Web client worked in FreeBSD on chromium last I checked, but haven't had any call to touch zoom in a bit. I dropped it when they had their AI TOS scandle a few years ago. SO if it still exists thats an option.

@rl_dane @DrInterpreter @AnachronistJohn @jns

Zoom may be non negotiable, but just annecodtally I thoiught id mention.

In general web video works very well on FreeBSD, and it works with every telehealth platform ive thrown at it. AND I've got a reocurring tabletop RPG that meets over discord, that works in FreeBSD using the linux dicord client in the linux emulator. AND I regularly chat with friends over signal video on FreeBSD.

@DrInterpreter @trashheap @AnachronistJohn @jns

The good thing is that it's not a zero-sum-game.

You can experiment with BSD on an old side laptop like I've done for nearly four years now, and still use your preferred Linux distro on your main.

I haven't gotten to the point of running BSD on my main machine yet, but I am daily-driving FreeBSD on a side machine at home.