Linux is copeware

There’s an issue with Linux that doesn’t get much attention: its strong reliance on the internet. To install distributions like Arch or Gentoo, an active internet connection is required, since essential components such as the kernel, graphics drivers, and other packages must be downloaded during installation. Linux ecosystem heavily depends on package managers, which fetch applications from online repositories. While formats like Flatpak and AppImage aim to provide standalone executables, they are not as standardized or widely supported as .exe files on Windows, .apk on Android, or .dmg on macOS. Those formats make it easy to store installers locally, share them, or archive them on other media. Dependency hell only makes things worse: many Linux programs require specific libraries, sometimes even particular versions, which also need to be downloaded, often resulting in version conflicts. In contrast, Windows installers typically bundle all necessary dependencies (such as Visual C++, XNA, or DirectX), so everything required is installed together. Unlike with Linux, it’s possible to continue using Windows far into the future, simply by keeping the installers, programs, games, libraries, and drivers stored on your own drives or physical discs. If the internet goes away, Linux becomes almost unusable, while Windows remains functional with what you’ve saved.

>>87600 Is this rage bait? Package managers can fetch packages locally. In fact most installers do exactly that to bootstrap the system before connecting to the internet. Multiple distributions still provide entirely offline installers as well. Hell, I've even mirrored the entire debian repositories on my local network to avoid hitting the internet for package updates, that's more software hosted locally than most Windows users would ever think to store. There's so many options that avoid the internet directly that it's laughable to claim what you're claiming. Additionally, Windows software packaging is horrible soykaf. You're just lucky that most Windows developers treat Windows customers like troglodytes, so they repackage their (usually outdated) dependencies and just give you a bundle. It's a horrid mess that gets a nice sheen of paint so the people who are scared of the computer will buy it. Everything you described Windows as being capable of, Linux can do with hilarious ease. I sincerely recommend you actually learn about the Linux packaging and software landscape before posting slop.

>>87601 Not rage bait, just pointing out a real-world inconvenience. Solutions like mirroring repos locally or setting up custom offline packages are things an average user doesn't do. Tinkerer distros are designed around fetching packages online by default. Sure, offline options exist, but they aren't exactly intuitive or common for regular users. On Windows (which was just an example), bundled installers may be messy, but the idea itself, download once, install anytime, no internet needed, is straightforward. It's practical, even if not perfect. Linux is flexible enough to solve these problems, but out-of-the-box, it's clearly internet-dependent. That's the point.

>>87600 This is exactly my problem with linux, if you don't update regularly things just break, it's kinda dogshit Who knows when the internet might disappear it could happen any day

If you have all the necessary software to bootstrap it (which is quite a lot of things), you can forever use linux without ever needing an internet connection whatsoever and you can continue to write your own software. I've done just this in the past. Not that I would write a lot of software, but it is completely possible to use a linux system without an internet connection; armed with gcc, the shell, and the manpages, there's really nothing you can't do with your linux system.

>>87604 that said, it is a rather limited system if you don't have the tools you need for your workflow. Recently I went offline for a couple days, I thought I would use that time to work on some stuff, and it turns out I needed to download the texinfo package to see the documentation of a few programs I was poking into. We are so goddamn used to search engines that we often neglect the primary documentation our systems provide us (or fail to by default).

>>87603 >not changing things causes them to break updates are the only thing that can break something >>87602 >normal people use prepackaged windows with full updates normal people get preinstalled windows and passively tolerate forced online updates which are outside your control since win10 and break software randomly

>>87600 Just share the source code, and have the user compile the software himself

In summary, if you want to install software, you have to get it from somewhere... like the Internet. Yeah, that checks out. >To install distributions like Arch or Gentoo, an active internet connection is required Unless you paid someone to send you your Arch CD, you already have network access... >In contrast, Windows installers typically bundle all necessary dependencies (such as Visual C++, XNA, or DirectX), so everything required is installed together. My personal experience is quite opposite. I've only had issues when I broke my package manager by swapping to unstable release. I use Linux 98.5% of the time, and in the 1.5% I use Windows; in the last few years I've had to track down so many vcredist and shady DLLs to get things to work. Anyway, your idea is not very original. People have already made more compelling arguments for why the package management system is not a good idea, more from the purview of security. Moreover, at this point it's kind of ridiculous to consider the idea of not having network access for the average computer user. It's like saying "the problem with computers is they rely on you having a monitor so you can see what's happening". Of course they do.

>>87602 Windows has very different problems that anyone who has spent two seconds looking into this issue knows. Even someone who uses both could point out at least a few. This is indeed ragebait. Or copebait. Hard to tell.

You can do the same sort of thing with Linux. Either setup a local package cache. Download the programs you want as appimages, or flatpak bundles. For native packages it becomes complicated because you need all the dependencies, too, but that's trivial to acheive. Install stuff when you have Internet, copy your /var/cache/apt/ and save your .deb files you care about, and you're good. It's the same thing as keeping a windows install disk and saving .exes, but you probably just didn't know how to do it. The other benefit of a Linux system is that you can take a drive and pull it from one machine and put it into another without driver hell like you get on Windows. Provided all your drivers are in the kernel or you install all the required firmware packages, you could go from, say, a thinkpad x201 to a Framework Laptop with an AMD chip, no problem.

>>87608 you can just run a batch executable to take control of the windows update files and delete them i cant show you because my pc is not working right now and i dont remember exactly but it was something easy like changing permissions for the update services and deleting them, theres 3 or 4 you can just do this it deletes them which is fine for me because drivers from 3rd party sources are the same or better and if the windows is functioning why did it need to be updated anyway but now you cant install the dot net framework even with the offline installer also i dont know what happens to defender

>>87602 >Not rage bait, just pointing out a real-world inconvenience. Solutions like mirroring repos locally or setting up custom offline packages are things an average user doesn't do.

>>87628 Oops I forgot to write bait used to be believable

Anyone saying this is ragebait: In a situation you wouldn't have any possibility for having internet at home, but you could go to let's say to library to download software, do you think linux would be more feasible than windows? Obviously this is not an usual usecase, nor does this make Linux "copeware".

You can assemble a Debian super-iso with jigdo-tool and have every package avaiable on it, in this scenario I doubt Windows could get closer.

>>87602 >an average user average users dont use gentoo or arch gentoo or arch users can probably mirror a lot of packages. I do

I wonder, what are the most oob feature packed maintained distributions currently? Something you could download once and it would have the most packages by default. I think Slackware is probably somewhere high on this list. Any other ideas? Also interested in non-linux operating systems with the same approach.

>>87627 >>87627 TAKEOWN /F C:\Windows\System32\UpdateAgent.dll TAKEOWN /F C:\Windows\System32\updatecsp.dll TAKEOWN /F C:\Windows\System32\UpdateDeploymentProvider.dll TAKEOWN /F C:\Windows\System32\UpdateHeartbeat.dll TAKEOWN /F C:\Windows\System32\updatepolicy.dll sc delete wuauserv sc delete UsoSvc sc delete WaaSMedicSvc icacls C:\Windows\System32\UpdateAgent.dll /grant Users:F icacls C:\Windows\System32\updatecsp.dll /grant Users:F icacls C:\Windows\System32\UpdateDeploymentProvider.dll /grant Users:F icacls C:\Windows\System32\UpdateHeartbeat.dll /grant Users:F icacls C:\Windows\System32\updatepolicy.dll /grant Users:F del /f C:\Windows\System32\UpdateAgent.dll del /f C:\Windows\System32\updatecsp.dll del /f C:\Windows\System32\UpdateDeploymentProvider.dll del /f C:\Windows\System32\UpdateHeartbeat.dll del /f C:\Windows\System32\updatepolicy.dll sc delete wuauserv sc delete UsoSvc sc delete WaaSMedicSvc i have to run it twice i dont know why because both takeown and icacls should do the same thing and it makes delete three times anyway must be that i am not very good at it

>>87637 The debian iso with the gui installer installs a lot of stuff for you by default

Couldn't you say this about all (if not most) Operating Systems? Literally almost all software & drivers get updated through the internet nowadays. Having a barebones Linux distro such as Arch or Gentoo and expecting the same plug-n-play with everything bundled together kind of goes against the reason of wanting to get into Arch or Gentoo to begin with. The bloat that comes with Windows is one of the reasons people switch Linux. I don't mean to make this into a "whataboutism" post, but to simply point this out as just a Linux problem is just nitpicky at best. There are already distros that come with drivers & programs that work out of the box, and just like Windows would require internet to update.

OP's premise is detached from real-life practice. My institute is packed with scientific instruments that are disconnected from the internet for security reasons. They're all controlled by computers running Fedora, and they've been exactly the same systems for 10 years. The machines are running programs from 2004. Aside from the instrument control software, they also have basic programs (word processor, spreadsheet, PDF reader, IDEs etc). It's perfectly servicable. In the event of a Great Internet Shutdown, what more do you really need?

>>87603 >if you don't update regularly things just break I have had the opposite experience, that the only time anything breaks is when I try to update it. So, I never update my system, and things just work. >>87611 >if you want to install software, you have to get it from somewhere... like the Internet Yea, I find OPs complaint odd, since that's the medium of distribution for all media these days. You can goto a store and buy a CD containing software, but that is rare.

>>87600 you can literally get DVD sets for Debian or Slackware. you can also easily download the source code. modern windows literally requires online account to install.

>>87600 Slackware doesn't need internet to be installed, barely has a package manager, and the average Slackware user is already comfortable enough with ancient programs to bother installing vibecoded python programs with 9000 dependencies

OP points out something about Linux. Answers: - bait/ragebait - you are wrong (works on my pc) - I'm not a normal user (works on my pc) - windows bad Another day on /g/

>>89432 Listen m8, I am not sure how Windows works exactly, but OP said >To install distributions [...] an active internet connection is required [they are] downloaded during installation. And got replies why this is not the case, as >>87634 >>89430 pointed out. >Linux ecosystem heavily depends on package managers, which fetch applications from online repositories. [...] Those formats [exe, apk dmg] make it easy to store installers locally, share them, or archive them on other media. ./configure && make && make install (I am partially joking) >In contrast, Windows installers typically bundle all necessary dependencies (such as Visual C++, XNA, or DirectX), so everything required is installed together. Gentoo's slots come to mind >Unlike with Linux, it’s possible to continue using Windows far into the future, simply by keeping the installers, programs, games, libraries, and drivers stored on your own drives or physical disc Replied in >>87625 and >>89412

>>87600 I have a different approach >>89412 an mkv player a flv player to play flash games a haha funny webm compilation a set of vidya, ugh...

There's a lot of back and forth in this thread. Is there a guide to prepare a build for offline use for the foreseeable future? Also what would those hanging around this thread recommend? Also would distro really even matter? I've been considering going the route of Gentoo and compiling all of my packages for less breakage as someone who is still using Arch and knowing that Arch probably isn't the best that I could be using. Also wanting to step away from systemd. I've also been eyeballing Nix, Guix, Slackware, and even Artix as well as Devuan.

>>89437 Do you actually have a goal? Like, what's the situation? Global internet somehow turns off? unlikely. Nuclear war? computers are going to be the last of your problems. Censorship of the internet? Distro doesn't really matter to use tools such as yt-dlp and archive.org. Your favorite distro shuts down their servers? Could happen. But then again, what do you need to do? It's not like operating systems shut down after 30 days because you didn't connect to the internet (idk about modern MacOS or windows though). The only reasonable issue you can encounter is clock issues if you plan to network locally, because computers usually connect to NTP servers to keep synchronized. But offices used to run offline or only locally networked machines all the time. Stuff like the silicon graphics workstation were made with that in mind since they weren't really secure and no one would buy one as a personal desktop

>>89438 As long as I have a way to connect to the internet, I'd want to. Of course to bypass censorship, situations with Digital IDs in the future, I'd want to figure out some way to maintain a P2P connection for sharing content as well as obtaining it. Maintaining my backups of personal files, games, books, media, and other content that could potentially be useful. Software to be able to potentially work on something productive. Creating media such as editing videos as well as images, creating games, writing code for future projects that could possibly benefit myself or others. I personally don't have many skills other than those I have used my computer for. I'd want to still be able to be useful to people in that medium in the deeper parts of a dystopian world we're being dragged into. I just want to figure out a way to properly prepare for this the best way that I can.

>>89438 how can you be so dumb? 1. Internet's safety. Imagine getting SHODAN'd out of nowhere. 2. This haha funny "legacy" part of IT 2020s internet isn't 2000s Internet 2000s Internet wasn't 1980s Usenet, getting some 1980s manuals off 2000s Internet was a hassle already. Meanwhile, industrial grade machnes tend to live for 30-40 years ("legacy", in IT terms) and the machinery, ironically, is the cheapest part - the "getting used to new stuff" actually takes more resourses than building a same new robo-loom or something. In conclusion : modern linux may lose its "solid bulletproof choice for industrial use" due to all the haha funny updaties.

>>89437 > Is there a guide to prepare a build for offline use for the foreseeable future? Countless. > Also what would those hanging around this thread recommend? See below. > Also would distro really even matter? I've been considering going the route of Gentoo and compiling all of my packages for less breakage as someone who is still using Arch and knowing that Arch probably isn't the best that I could be using. If Arch works for you it works for you. If you want to compile everything from source, that's your prerogative. "Going the route of Gentoo" comes off as more effort than simply using Gentoo and compiling packages for it, but if you wish to do that then by all means. > Also wanting to step away from systemd. I've also been eyeballing Nix, Guix, Slackware, and even Artix as well as Devuan. No love for Alpine Linux? Anywho. The main thing to note is that the syntax for working with OpenRC or something similar is different than SystemD. >>89445 > As long as I have a way to connect to the internet, I'd want to. VPNs, Tor/I2P, proxies, Veilid, etc. There is a fair bit of nuance to this, but my suggestion would be to look to those who still access the Western internet despite being behind Great Firewalls - Iran, Russia (to a degree - citation needed), China, etc. This Twitter thread (yes, I know) from an Iranian infosec gentleman has a probable timeline: http://web.archive.org/https://twitter-thread.com/t/1951311826819437021 The TL;DR is, the low hanging options and most advanced protocols will be blocked (including Wireguard). Chinese protocols that have been battle tested are very hard to block. Xray is a solid option for VPN traffic for bypassing censorship in the future. If you have not reached that level of dystopia in your region yet, MullvadVPN (or simply hosting your own VPN on a remote VPS someplace) should be fine. Pay in cash or cryptocurrency if you are extra paranoid. > Of course to bypass censorship, situations with Digital IDs in the future, I'd want to figure out some way to maintain a P2P connection for sharing content as well as obtaining it. Torrents, I2P, etc. Archive things today so you can see them tomorrow. > I personally don't have many skills other than those I have used my computer for. Change that, lainon. For your sake and the sake of others, for your own quality of life and general happiness. A capable person is a happy person. > I'd want to still be able to be useful to people in that medium in the deeper parts of a dystopian world we're being dragged into. I just want to figure out a way to properly prepare for this the best way that I can. Learn useful skills, then. Learn to cook, do basic first aid, repair clothes and electronics, etc. Make a list of what it would be useful to be able to do for yourself and others, then work down it. Side note - the basic examples I listed above (cooking, basic first aid, repairing clothes and electronics) are good skills to have regardless of an apocalypse scenario. Someone who can cook a meal, patch your jacket, and fix your phone, is someone to be treasured. Find people who can teach you these things and keep them close. > Software to be able to potentially work on something productive. Creating media such as editing videos as well as images, creating games, writing code for future projects that could possibly benefit myself or others. Archive documentation and books/tutorials related to what you want to do. (Addressing this last as it justifies the longest response) > Maintaining my backups of personal files, games, books, media, and other content that could potentially be useful. This is rather simple to do. The ideal for your files is to have *at least* a 3-2-1 backup: 3 copies of your data, across 2 different formats, with 1 offsite someplace (at your friends/family's place, jammed in the ceiling tiles at a random Tesco's, etc.). Your backup solution should be low friction and low effort (easy to do). Encrypt your backups with strong passphrases. Use a selection of spinning rust drives for redundancy. If you need a list of refutable brands, Backblaze keeps a dataset of hard drive statistics: https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/resources/hard-drive-test-data For your system itself: If you have a laptop with with two hard drive slots, consider using ZFS with a zpool for redundancy. If you have a desktop, do the same. If you're backing up your full disk/making a system backup (operating system and everything on it): Use Clonezilla. Shutdown your machine, disconnect it from the network, clone your system drive with Clonezilla to an external drive (or two, if you have them). This is simple, it is easy to manage, and it is a set and forget solution. It also encrypts your backup automatically with the same method you used for your system disk (you mentioned Linux so I assume LUKS, but whatever you used when setting up your system should be fine). Source: https://anonymousplanet.org/guide/#full-disksystem-backups If you're backing up sensitive documents (ID, tax information, etc.): You may want to use the Veracrypt Hidden File containers with plausible deniability. See here for more information: https://anonymousplanet.org/guide/#hidden-file-containers-with-plausible-deniability If you're simply archiving media (movies, books, TV shows, comics/manga, etc.): a standard Veracrypt container should suffice. When updating/adding to your archive, consider using rsync. Side note: your personal photos and videos should also be copied to a separate drive, with the passphrase also entrusted to a lawyer or someone you trust. This is for the sake of your friends and family, should they need to recover your data in the event of your demise. If you're managing software: look into maintaining a dedicated package mirror for your distribution(s) of choice, or at the very least maintaining the source code and instructions on how to build the package from source. There is more to be said on sourcing the media itself. For a more in depth guide on sourcing media, go here: https://rentry.co/FMHY and find what you need. I personally use: - Nyaa for anime and manga torrents - Anna's Archive (as well as the Internet Archive and The Eye) for books - GetComics for comics - Lucidia and Squid (and sometimes Nicotine++ for SoulSeek) for music - FitGirl and/or DODI for repacks of games, as well as gog-games You use linux, so I'll assume you know how to use sed to derive the URLs: sed -e 's/Nyaa/nyaa.su/g' \ -e 's/Anna'\''s Archive/annas-archive.org/g' \ -e 's/GetComics/getcomics.org/g' \ -e 's/Lucidia/lucidia.to/g' \ -e 's/Squid/squid.wtf/g' \ -e 's/Nicotine++/nicotine-plus.org/g' \ -e 's/FitGirl/fitgirl-repacks.site/g' \ -e 's/DODI/1337x.to\/user\/DODI\//g' \ -e 's/gog-games/gog-games.to/g' post There are other methods (DC++, Napster, eMule, retroshare, XDCC, etc.). There are tutorials on using them: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqv94xWU9zZ0vC-7KIvnfjsMbXYLJEdvi . I have yet to need to use them; when that changes I will look into them. Also, look into self hosting. I could go on, but this should be enough to get you started. Best of luck.

>>89462 Good stuff but I would not recommend using Veracrypt as it lost my files on multiple occasions. LUKS has always been dependable for me. For single file encryption I use gpg, for full disk encryption I use LUKS. Now I will teach the good citizens of this obscure imageboard how to emulate Veracrypt volumes with LUKS. #Create a random file. Count determines the size of the randomized file. I create file of size 8192 MiB. sudo dd if=/dev/urandom of=encrypted.img bs=1M count=8192 #Convert the file into LUKS format sudo cryptsetup luksFormat encrypted.img #Open your new LUKS image sudo cryptsetup open encrypted.img encrypted_image #Create the file system on your LUKS volume sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/encrypted_image #Create a mount point. We will mount the encrypted image here. mkdir encrypted_mount #Mount your encrypted image sudo mount /dev/mapper/encrypted_image encrypted_mount #Take ownership of the mount point. You will not be able to write to your encrypted partition without this step. sudo chown <username> -R encrypted_mount/ And there you have it. Detachable LUKS partition you can store as a file. This functionally replaces a Veracrypt volume. When you are done #Unmount the encrypted image sudo umount encrypted_image #Close the LUKS volume sudo cryptsetup close encrypted_image And when you want to open your LUKS image again #Open the LUKS volume sudo cryptsetup open encrypted.img encrypted_image #Mount your image sudo mount /dev/mapper/encrypted_image encrypted_mount

There is a very serious logic issue at the last part of my post that I have missed before clicking Post. The unmounting process should be as follows When you are done #Unmount the encrypted image sudo umount encrypted_mount #Close the LUKS volume sudo cryptsetup close encrypted_image

>>89465 >sudo dd if=/dev/urandom of=encrypted.img bs=1M count=8192 /dev/random is preferable since it uses entropy pool, urandom is of course faster but it's better to wait a bit in most usecases, I quote from the manpages >A read from the /dev/urandom device will not block waiting for more entropy. As a result, if there is not sufficient entropy in the entropy pool, the returned values are theoretically vulnerable to a cryptographic attack on the algorithms used by the driver. >/dev/random should be suitable for uses that need very high quality randomness such as one-time pad or key generation.

https://slugcat.systems/brain_dump/linux-desktop-issues/ >If you published a .NET 5 app in August 2022, it will not work on Ubuntu 22.04. This is a distro which came out only 8 months after you published your app. >Somebody at Canonical thought twice about dropping OpenSSL 1.1, and decided that yes, Ubuntu 22.04 should just soykaf all over backwards compatibility to save some megabytes. Wow.

>>89465 >>89466 Great post. I thought about including the more *NIX-like solution of putting individual files into TAR archives, updating them with rsync, and encrypting them with GPG. But your solution seems interesting as well. As >>89469 notes, please use /dev/random for entropy. Sorry to hear about your lost files, lainon. I mentioned VeraCrypt because you can also use the plausible deniability feature for some operating systems to make hidden partitions (technically possible with Linux [0] through various means), but to each their own. >>89462 Some things I forgot to mention: It can be useful to archive and hoard AI models. Uncensored versions of the newer Chinese models exist and work quite well, and can be hosted locally offline. If you need additional incentive, think of how useful you become if you have a local uncensored version of a ChatGPT-like model available even through a power and/or internet outage. You can even run some models on a phone [1]. Obviously, the more powerful your hardware the more powerful model you can run, but something is always better than nothing. I say this not to talk up AI and AGI and the like, but simply because it's useful to both know how to run a model (or models, plural) and have the hardware and software capacity to do so. On the note of power outages: look into solar power. Solar equipment is only getting cheaper, guides are everywhere, and being able to harvest power from the sun is desirable for fairly obvious reasons. This magazine [2] has a good guide on getting started [3]. Finally, look into pirate boxes - self-contained programs that allow computers to act as wifi access points, media servers, communication servers, etc. While it is possible to share media Cuban style [4], by packaging it into USB drives and sharing it around, this makes it a lot easier. Something like this [5] is in the spirit of the original pirate box program while being more up to date. [0] https://anonymousplanet.org/guide/#note-about-plausible-deniability-on-linux [1] https://jalexine.github.io/performatively-run-a-llm-locally.html [2] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com [3] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/12/how-to-build-a-small-solar-power-system/ [4] https://lin-web.clarkson.edu/~jmatthew/publications/ElPaquete.pdf [5] https://github.com/himuglamuh/BeaconBox

OP = AI bait written posted by an Indian

>>89498 Linux users when they have to manually bind their brightness keys in XFCE

>>87600 >if the internet goes away, Linux becomes unusable This is obviously bait, but nevertheless... skill issue and also wrong. Ubongo and other debian derivatives are actually way more user-friendly and stable than every iteration of Windows including W7. Presumably you can even mail Thinkpenguin and other companies money and they'll send you a Linux install disc in case you somehow accidentally buggered things beyond repair. You can order Dell and Lenovo laptops with Linux preinstalled from your local computer shop, or from said companies over the phone. They work out of the box without having to connect to some cloud server, unlike modern Windows. <b-but what about muh photo editing, I'm so retarded that I can't use a camera properly so I need adobe crapware and muh self-hosted AI folded over 1000 times in coPilot or whatever it's called Also a skill issue. If you're a passable photographer and have decent lenses that suit your use case, you don't need video editing software. Even the bog-standard crop feature isn't necessary most of the time unless you're a retard or a spaz. Most spaz-related photography issues don't require AI enhancement to fix them, but can be resolved by shake reduction that is built into a lot of modern lenses, or by using really fast prime lens. If you want to make memes, GIMP works really well. Are you worried your prospective employers will be able to somehow detect your hard copy resume was printed from an ODT file? lol, lmao even. If the internet goes down permanently you'll probably have bigger problems in our pointlessly hyperconnected world.

Give up on telling this people on here. Linux and freetardism is a fuarrrking cult and you cannot reach them by arguing with them. I bet somebody is going to claim I'm trying to ragebait, too, or that I have yet to understand how Linux works, because anybody who doesn't like how software distribution on Linux works, certainly has no clue what he is talking about. What you are describing is very real. Portable, statically-compiled Windows programs can be installed and run on any version of Windows to this day and, most importantly, can be run on an airgapped machine. With Linux you have two choices: Be dependent on the Internet, unable to work without an Internet connection, because every specific application that you run has plenty of dependencies that completely handicap their portability. As such you're at the mercy of your package manager to tweak your system such that it can run the software you need, meanwhile on Windows a portable executable or installer can be run by itself with just the operating system present. On Linux you have two options: Depend on a package manager to do everything for you, which only works with an Internet connection, since it needs all the dependencies to tweak the system for you, or, alternatively, be run in its own mini-OS like Flatpak, AppImage, Snap, chroots, and so on. While you can absolutely install a 32bit game compiled for Windows 2000 on Windows 10/11, you cannot install software reaching only a few years back on a modern Linux distribution; if you claim otherwise, you can install a qt2 application on something like modern Arch Linux or Debian. Maybe it's possible, but it's certainly a huge struggle compared to just double-clicking an exe file on Windows. With Windows you can share all your executables with somebody else by just copying them on a USB stick or burning them on a DVD, unlike on Linux, where you that is basically impossible, since package management doesn't work in an airgapped environment. Piracy on Linux doesn't exist either for this reason, because you cannot just share any executable you want and expect it to work on the other end. GOG tried to make some games work with installers on Linux, however they are still dependent on things like glibc and so on, and it's likely they won't run on your machine in 20 years, like you would expect from an old Windows game. Freetards would argue at this point that pirating software isn't what you're supposed to do, since free as in freedom software doesn't need to be pirated, and you're supposed to use all free as in freedom software. This misses the point though, as even with free as in freedom software you cannot compile it in an airgapped environment unless you go utterly insane and also download the source code of every dependency you would need to install, and this arguably is more """bloated""" than having a singular executable that can just be ran everywhere. Not to mention it would be just a workaround for an already broken by design concept. None of the Linux distributions offer something that could solve this. Slackware is the closest to working on an airgrapped machine, but installing new software, not included on the discs, is also subject to the same problems. Gentoo/ExHerbo/Crux/KISS Linux could work if you were to download all the package mirrors locally, but this can barely be called a solution, since you would need hundreds of gigabytes of storage space for what is essentially something that is already solved in Windows by doing much less. Moreover, this doesn't account for the problem of not being able to run old software, which is something not even possibly if you were download all the ebuilds in the world on Gentoo. I hope I explained my standpoint well enough so far.

>>92717 >statically-compiled Windows programs can be installed and run on any version of Windows to this day and, most importantly, can be run on an airgapped machine. Same with Linux programs. That's how closed-source games are distributed actually. >run on any version of Windows to this day That's false. 16-bit programs got deprecated ages ago, and din't Windows 11 deprecate 32-bit programs too? >meanwhile on Windows a portable executable or installer can be run by itself with just the operating system present. Not my experience. I don't use Windows much, but I've had to install dotnet and directX manually for some programs to work. >Depend on a package manager to do everything for you, which only works with an Internet connection, since it needs all the dependencies to tweak the system for you You can also ship all the dependencies along with the program you want to install. Though it will still be brittle because of potentially conflicting versions. Alternatively, like it is (used to be?) done on Windows, statically compile your libraries. >they are still dependent on things like glibc and so on, ??? That's almost like saying windows programs are dependant on WinAPI. glibc is extremely backward-compatible. And you don't have to use glibc if you're that anal about portability, statically compile against musl instead of using glibc. >Piracy on Linux doesn't exist either for this reason, I thought the reason was that there were barely any non-free games until a decade ago. The difference stems from the fact that libtards write code (that they compile with the libraries they happen to have), and don't package their software. Thus were invented package managers because manually compiling and installing software from a thousand sources was intractable. But package managers can control the dependencies, so sharing them offers better performances than statically compiling everything. By contrast, closed-source programs (or at least, pre-packaged by the developer), that are commonplace in Windows land, cannot share dependencies since the developer cannot know what you're running. That isn't a fault of Linux in itself, but rather of the free software model where software distribution is handled by different people, with different goals. Someone could run an archive with statically compiled programs, and they would in all likelyhood work on all future versions of Linux* so long as the target hardware is supported. * With the right accompagnying software if relevant (display server, shell, ...). The only advantage of windows on that front is that there is only one display server.

>>92719 Lets not turn in circles. Windows offers local loading of dlls from any path . Windows msvcrt offers stronger backward compatibility vs glibc or god knows what. /usr/include is a curse

Well Android is Linux so just use Android ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

most linux FUD is baseless. this thread is no different. i wonder how much microsoft/apple pays for this astroturf? i wouldn't mind a side-hustle bullshitting idiots.

>>92717 >With Windows you can share all your executables with somebody else by just copying them on a USB stick or burning them on a DVD, unlike on Linux you can do that on linux too, and any other os for that matter. if the executable is compiled for your cpu architecture and your os kernel and you have whatever libraries it looks for, then it will run regardless of distro or package manager. the linux kernel is distro-agnostic and relatively stable, i have old builds of c programs that i compiled on the 2.6 kernel 20 years ago that still run just fine on modern linux. the only area where linux is fragmented is the userland, the main thing being what version of the c standard library is included. most distros including all the major popular ones use glibc but there's a few that use musl or some other unconventional stdlib. but even windows installations aren't consistent with what stdlib they have installed, just think about how many times you've tried to run a windows application and you got an error about a missing visual c++ redistributable and you had to go manually install it. today i was trying to use yt-dlp on windows which i've had installed and have used for ages now and it suddenly wasn't working anymore and i learned that recently windows silently enabled a new feature called "smart app control" which just arbitrarily blocks the execution of applications that microsoft decides are not appropriate, basically anything that isn't in the windows store. that's the kind of thing i can least never have to worry about happening on linux is bullshit like that, at least with linux if something breaks i know it's probably just a bug and not a deliberate act of sabotage on the part of the OS developers to control what i can and can't do with my own god damn computer.

>>92821 > i learned that recently windows silently enabled a new feature called "smart app control" why do people still use windows? i haven't used windows or mac in over a decade and these problems seem so shocking that people just keep using it. stockholm? battered wife? ptsd? just too stupid? why?

>>92822 It comes preinstalled.

>>92823 imagine being too fuarrrking stupid to uninstall something. also, still buying prebuilt? absolute retards.

>>92822 I'm worried there will be a program I won't be able to use since it isn't supported on linux. Of course I can take appropriate measures in such situation to still use the program but if I'm just exchanging problems for other problems then I might as well just stay on windows.

>>92825 if you can't live without a program or find an alt, you're retarded. doubly so because we all know you mean vidya. absolute consoomer whore.

>>92822 >why do people still use windows? i haven't used windows or mac in over a decade and these problems seem so shocking that people just keep using it. stockholm? battered wife? ptsd? just too stupid? why? it's called having a job and using a computer at work.

>>92824 Most people don't care as long as it works, even if badly. They won't spend effort to fix something that kind of works and take the risk of making it worse in the process. >>92842 >neurosuggesting people don't use Linux for work >or just trolling, most likely The question becomes: why do companies use windows when it is used to spy on their activity? IT teams routinely reinstall OSs so that can't be the reason.

>>92843 That clause in the GPL that says "no warranty" is what scares companies. They like to have someone they can sue if something breaks. That's why when they do go with linux, they almost exclusively go with RedHat.

>>92845 That makes sense I guess. Doesn't Canonical sell Linux support too?

>>89498 subverted an compromised. yet the baits been taken.

>>87630 Yes. Putting Debian xfce plus some packages on a usb stick will give me way more flexibility and options then windows could. Look, I can set up my entire system on there with exactly the packages I need and I can install and duplicate from it as I please, with windows I'm stuck with whatever windows offers on the version I choose. Not to mention the fact that you can literally download the fuarrrking repository and host them all locally as it was mentioned way to often itt already

Linux was way more work for me, the distros I had the best results with required a decent amount of work, and tinkering. Gentoo or Arch is pretty much all I'd use on modern hardware. Windows 10 IoT LTSC just works though. Doesn't get in your way, no ms store or AI soykaf. After this I will move over though, but I've got till 2032.

i use linux bcz my pc doesn't support openbsd well

>>92833 this is silly; you've got some things like expensive commercial cad garbage that is maybe with great difficulty useable on wine. gabe newell solved gaming.

>>87600 So the issue is that you ish Linux was like the big companies that force all third parties to align with versions x and y? Otherwise we need all the people working on these projects to declare at least one global package of reference for the libraries to be voted by a consensus.

I have seen some pretty old systems that are still running off of Debian & Variants (Mint) That haven't been updated and are just fine. Also to get around the package problem you can just install from local repo's or just bundle them in your own .iso

>>93304 But what software is ran on them that allows you to avoid feeling like returning to the dreaded normal person world of Windows? >Also to get around the package problem you can just install from local repo's or just bundle them in your own .iso Don't you need to update those frequently though, just shifting the lib freshness issue towards one of delivery instead?

Yay, another thread from some kid who doesn't know the Internet wasn't ubiquitous at one point. I love drivel! >>87601 >ragebait OP is most likely a dumbass >>89432 >/g/ holy soykaf leave and never come back this blunder should make you want to kill yourself