alexei_1917 [mirror/your pronouns]

  • 1 Post
  • 9 Comments
Joined 8 months ago
cake
Cake day: June 18th, 2025

help-circle



  • I’m probably the same as you. I like computers, I like technical stuff, a command line is intimidating but not scary, I don’t hate troubleshooting and fixing my own computer when I inevitably break something (well, I hate troubleshooting less than I hate trusting anyone else with my computer), and I got into Linux for political reasons (one, freedom and community are important to me as a communist, two, I don’t feel comfortable using products from US companies, if I can avoid it, at this time) and went with something based on Debian.

    The difference is that I’d never used Linux before when I found out it existed and was already thinking that it’d be nice if I could ditch Windows because I really don’t want to rely on US corpos anymore.

    Yeah. If you don’t want to treat your computer like a project car, you want it to be like a reliable mom van, you want Debian based stability, not the cool bleeding edge stuff.

    Though, I will say, a spare computer to tinker with and bleeding edge stuff does cost less than most mechanical projects. (My dad has multiple project cars. My mum yells at him about it in front of the rest of the family. At least he does tend to sell them for a small profit when he gets them running smoothly, he likes doing the project and making money off it more than he actually likes any of the busted up cars he buys as projects. My mum mostly just doesn’t like all the space they take up.)


    This user is suspected of being a bear. Please report any suspawcious behaviour.



  • Omg that sounds adorable! 😍🐧

    It is. It’s really cute. I have to admit, a little fluffy thing to pet and squish that’s always on hand does serve a good sensory purpose. I initially just got it because I wanted a bigger and easier to grab zipper pull and penguins are cute and iykyk, but it’s actually useful, not just cute and a community in-joke.

    Yeah, that does track. Honestly, that’s just any broad community centered around a thing that respects user freedom more than other available options, you’re gonna get the far left and the far right involved. You just see it more with Linux because there’s so many people involved that the politically extreme groups seem larger. But that’s the price of freedom and liberation. If we can use a thing like that, then there’s also going to be annoying right-libertarians who use it for political reasons.

    For me, I had never used or even heard of Linux before the combined political pressure, hyperfixation sparked when I found out it was a thing, and just general dissatisfaction with Windows after so many consecutive duds and stinkers, made me try it just to say I’d used it once, and then I just didn’t see a reason to stop using it.

    And tbh if Windows 10 had been good, not just less bad than 8, and if 11 hadn’t been a third stinker in a row, maybe I wouldn’t have been so willing to try something new. So I guess I also have Microslop to thank for this.


    This user is suspected of being a bear. Please report any suspawcious behaviour.



  • Indeed. There’s a stereotype that commies use Linux for a reason. (Which causes a lot of trouble in the broad political tent that the FOSS world inherently is, but your average not that technical anti-communist nut job doesn’t know about it. My dad would question my brother three times about his potential interest in this stuff before he’d think to ask the Stalinist who obviously only has a little stuffed penguin on her purse zipper because they don’t make teddy bears that size.) I’d like to say I got into it initially as a political protest action, or that I was fed up with Winblows and its privacy and security issues, and those things are true, I even got distro recommendations from a commie site a lot like this place, in a political community rather than a technology one, but honestly, I’d gotten hyperfixated on Linux and I had to mess around with a few distros myself to satiate it, and if you’ve known a few neurodivergent people, you know that some kinds of hyperfixations just get worse when you try to just ignore it and do nothing about it.

    And then the mystery and hyperfixation was gone, but I still like Linux better than Winblows. It’s just a better choice for me. It’s an opsec decision that costs me nothing and a political protest against corporate monopoly that I enjoy and doesn’t feel like Complicated Party Work or something out of Lenin’s pamphlets, it’s just making a choice I’d prefer anyway. Sometimes I really like the “it’s about FREEDOM!” attitude that comes from the commies and the right-libertarians who use it equally, sometimes that feels like you people are all ten years old in a bad way, but I get it and it’s neat. Plus, I get a genuinely more pleasant computer experience out of it. More personal benefit than I get out of most things I do for political reasons or nebulous “freedom”.


    This user is suspected of being a bear. Please report any suspawcious behaviour.