ilinamorato @ ilinamorato @lemmy.world

Posts

2

Comments

1,824

Joined

2 yr. ago

Because this here is for support. That there is for evangelism.

It's not thinking. It's just spicy autocomplete; having ingested most of the web, it "knows" that what follows a question about the meaning of a phrase is usually the definition and etymology of that phrase; there aren't many examples online of anyone asking for the definition of a phrase and being told "that doesn't exist, it's not a real thing." So it does some frequency analysis (actually it's probably more correct to say that it is frequency analysis) and decides what the most likely words to come after your question are, based on everything it's been trained on.

But it doesn't actually know or think anything. It just keeps giving you the next expected word until it meets its parameters.

I'm a newcomer to Linux (only about a year in), but here's what I've got so far:

Will my ability to play games be significantly affected compared to Windows?

Mine wasn't at all. Valve has done a lot of work to make this seamless so that more games can be played on the Steam Deck. Check the Proton DB to see what your games look like.

Can I mod games as freely and as easily as I do on Windows?

I have very little experience with this, but probably. Linux users tend to be tinkerers.

If a program has no Linux version, is it unusable, or are there workarounds?

Can Linux run programs that rely on frameworks like .NET or other Windows-specific libraries?

Same answer for both: There's Wine, and a whole bunch of setup scripts that can get even stuff like Adobe Creative Suite working with it. Worst case scenario, there's VirtualBox for the one or two apps you might need to run Windows for. But I find that the open source options, while they might have a learning curve, tend to be substantially better than either of those options.

How do OS updates work in Linux? Is there a "Linux Update" program like what Windows has?

More or less, but you can pick and choose what updates you want to install and when. Most distros have a package manager that'll let you update the kernel, the drivers, the middleware, the desktop environment, all your apps, and even the package manager itself on your schedule, from one interface. You can also just ignore it and never update anything, though I wouldn't recommend that.

How does digital security work on Linux?

Very well. It's much more locked-down by default, for one thing.

Is it more vulnerable due to being open source?

Quite the opposite. Open source projects are well known for being less vulnerable out of the box; Linux in particular is used by huge companies as a lightweight server OS, so it has a lot of highly-paid people committing security fixes back down to the open source project.

Is there integrated antivirus software, or will I have to source that myself?

Antivirus is a bandaid on Windows, provided because the OS was written with certain naive assumptions that let attackers get access they shouldn't have. On Linux, those assumptions were not made. No application can be installed without your root password, for instance; downloaded files can't even be executed without specifically making them executable; and access to edit system files is restricted by a very robust permissions system.

All of that, plus Linux's much lower market share, also means that no malware authors are really wasting their time trying to write Linux malware. The attack vector just isn't worth the extra effort.

So no, there's no integrated antivirus; but for most users in most situations, it's not needed at all.

Are GPU drivers reliable on Linux?

Your mileage may vary significantly, but anecdotally it seems like most architectures from AMD and Nvidia have good support.

Can Linux (in the case of a misconfiguration or serious failure) potentially damage hardware?

Maybe, but like with Windows, I assume you have to really go out of your way to do so.

And also, what distro might be best for me?

I've only used Ubuntu and Mint. Mint has so far been the easiest and most user-friendly of the two. It's also regularly touted as the best for newcomers.

Joke's on you. My bar for replies is extremely low.

Given Trump's actions over the past three months, this isn't a prediction, but a threat.

"I've got a tariff and I don't know how to use it! Now lower interest rates or the economy gets it!"

Username checks out, but troll level is weak. Try harder.

Obviously that doesn't mean that the next 4+ years are going to be particularly pleasant for the people who live here, of course.

Move all of their actual statues into museums where they can live next to images of their injustices and retributions for all eternity. Rename their libraries and airports after those who died opposing them. Salt the ground from which their authoritarianism sprouted.

all machines built by man are destined to eventually fail

Every fascist regime in the world has fallen or is in the process of falling. It's not a matter of "if," but of "when."

Laugh tracks usually have nothing to do with how funny a show's writing actually is, but studies regularly show that people have a more positive experience with TV comedies when they have a laugh track. I assume it's probably something parasocial.

This person is obviously a MAGA troll, so I'm not responding to him; but for the sake of anyone reading this, here's a quick fact check:

Abrego Garcia was in the US legally and was convicted of no crime. This article is very clearly about legal immigration, and his only defense was to turn it into a story about illegal immigration, meaning that he's already conceded the point.

Ah yes, the recommended oil checks on a famously electric vehicle. /s

I get what you're saying, but more likely is that nobody would ever notice. Which also seems unlikely, since we're quite an oversharing culture.

I mean...there's a photo. Not that it couldn't be faked, but...that would seem to be a lot of effort from a government that hasn't shown much interest in exerting any.

See also: Community.

Well that, uh

That certainly was a comment

Whew, yes sir

Definitely a collection of words there, yup

The "soft landing" was a downright miracle of economics. They predicted a recession due to inflation for the entirety of Biden's administration, and it never happened; all because the Fed knew what they were doing.

Fair point.

Sure, but then you'd also expect to hear about Teslas with odometers that massively underreport the distance, too. Or that fail altogether. And while no one would be likely to report the former, the latter might be a bigger deal.

They're not good, but they are easy to win...if you have all the manufacturing facilities and are okay with plunging your country into depression for the sake of absolutely no benefit whatsoever.

Wait, what's the definition of "win" again?

So now we see whether Trump gives in or makes up bigger and bigger numbers. "900%! 1,776%! A BILLION PERCENT!"