Linux...So Much Has Changed In The Last 20 Years

One thing is certain time always passes time always marches forward There's nothing any of us can do about it and here lately I've been reflecting a little bit about The past as far as how things have changed over time as far as Linux in the last 20 years or so how technology has changed in the last 20 years or so how my time on YouTube as a Content creator especially a content creator in the Linux and free and open-source software space how things have changed over that time I mean a lot of things are different, you know And when I take a look back from then till now, you know, I see a lot of drastic changes in the world I see how technology has changed the world in many cases for the better in many cases for the worst for me as a Linux desktop user I've been using Linux on my desktop as my main operating system for going on about 18 19 years now Switch to Linux and up around 2008 and I never look back I've never had a machine that ran Windows since then I've never owned a Mac in my life So it's been a long time that I've been on Linux and certainly things have changed over the years I often get people that ask me about the software I use because it has changed You know the nine years that I've been doing YouTube I don't use the same software today that I used five years ago that I used nine years ago Certainly not the same software I used 20 years ago when I first switched to Linux Things naturally change as you get introduced to new stuff you find stuff that you like more than the stuff You're currently using so you swap it out For example these days let's talk about text editors my text editor of choice for the last five or six years has been Emacs I love Emacs. I spend a lot of time in Emacs these days and I can't imagine ever moving on from Emacs But it it might happen right because before that I was a Vim user and when I was using Vim You know what? I thought I'll probably never move on from Vim until I found Emacs and then I was like, oh, right I like this better and before I used Vim I was using plain text editors like a gedit or a genie When I was a Windows user 20 years ago You know what? My text editor of choice was what I used for everything including scripting and programming I used notepad Not notepad++ or any kind of fancy text editor just the regular notepad that is in Windows That was what I used for many years and I didn't customize it in any way It was just the white background with the black text and it was you know I was just amazed when I got to Linux and I found all of these much nicer looking text editors with Fancy features syntax highlighting and line numbers and all of that man I can't I can't imagine ever going back to using something like a notepad, right? I wouldn't do it now, but again, that's the difference from then till now You know things change people often ask me about file managers. And this is one I I Have a hard time answering because I think a lot of people don't believe me when I say this I don't really spend a lot of time in file managers. I don't really use file managers these days sometimes I'll pull one up on camera if I want to show you guys a GUI file manager because sometimes that's easier than Pulling up a terminal and CDing all over the file system but that's typically what I do the terminal is my file manager the GNU core utils are my file manager and That's just the truth I could easily live without a GUI file manager because for 99% of the file management type tests that I do on a daily basis the GNU core utils and a terminal are just fine Occasionally for like mass copy and paste kinds of things, you know Sometimes the GUI file managers are a little cleaner for that sort of work But you know outside of you know Some some really weird kind of issues that will crop up on occasion for the most part I prefer the terminal in fact for many years the terminal command-line interface Workflow was my workflow of choice. I would say at least for the last 10 years of me being a Linux user Yeah, I started gravitating more and more to the terminal I started learning more and more of the shell utilities and it got to the point where I spent Most of my time in the terminal anything that wasn't a web browser the web browser is the Application you spend most of your time in all of us because you have to interface with the web to do most things on A computer these days but outside of that Chances are if I wasn't in a web browser I was in a terminal until I learned Emacs because then Emacs really kind of is a Replacement for your terminal because of the nature of Emacs So again, even that changed from then till now is now I probably use the terminal less now than I did five years ago Just because in many cases Emacs replaces a lot of what I would normally do in a terminal certainly as far as Linux distros things have changed a lot in the 20 years or so that I've been running desktop Linux when I first switched to Linux I Switched to Ubuntu. That was my first distro and Ubuntu was great. It was your typical Stable long-term support release kind of distro you installed it. It looked gorgeous It ran like like crazy fast right compared to Windows and when I switched I I was running Windows XP and then switch to like a Ubuntu 804 or something and you know I'd like the speed difference was mind-blowing you're talking about Windows computers, you know You boot it up and it might take it might take 5-10 minutes for the thing to boot up You know Ubuntu just boot it up like that and in menus and Windows They just opened and closed instantly and I didn't even think that was possible I had never seen a computer that fast now and then over the years things Slowed down a little bit Because you know Windows or Linux in this case Linux used to be really light and we used to take pride And being a lot more minimal and a lot lighter a lot easier on resources than Windows Then you know a lot of the bigger desktop environments They started using up more and more resources as they became a little more full-featured and sometimes fancier Animations and stuff like that. So I have never Had the same experience with a lot of these modern distros as I did back then I you know, it doesn't blow me away in the way it did 20 years ago You guys that weren't around especially in the mid to late 2000s and saw some of those really good early Ubuntu LTS releases I think you'd be amazed at how fast everything was compared to these days And of course, we've got different distros now than we had 20 years ago when I switched to Linux I mean the choice was Ubuntu that was basically the only user friendly distro It kind of made Linux popular on the desktop without a Ubuntu Most of us wouldn't be using Linux right and we owe a debt of gratitude to Ubuntu making this thing popular And but you know There were some other popular desktop geared Linux distributions such as Mandrake was around back then Mandrake became Mandrava Magia now or what and then you got open Mandrava. You've got a lot of spiritual successors to the old Mandrake PC Linux OS was pretty popular back then. You never hear about it now It's still around but it doesn't seem like anybody really uses it these days I can go months if not years in between mentions of PC Linux OS You know and somebody mentions that I was like, oh that thing's still around very popular Linux distribution 20 years ago Debian, of course Red Hat was around back then Arch was in its infancy But arch wasn't popular arch was because it was still kind of new a hobbyist kind of distro seen as something very difficult to get into and to use Rolling releases in general had a very negative view connotation, you know, everybody thought well rolling releases are unstable and Really it it wasn't until the last I would say seven or eight years I know what about eight or nine years ago I think Manjaro popped up on the scene and it was an arch-based distro that kind of made people Think differently about rolling releases, especially arch-based rolling releases where it's like a it's user-friendly anybody can install it and it seems reasonably stable and Nobody really considered arch or arch-based system as a stable Desktop system that you put a normal user on nobody thought that before Manjaro and then since Manjaro we've had hundreds of Arch-based Distributions right again. It was rather new when Manjaro first came out now We've got probably a couple hundred different arch-based distros to choose from many of them Very easy to install really, you know graphical installers click Okay Three or four times you're installed in ten minutes and for the most part because they're based on arch And arch itself is much more stable these days than it was in years past You know, it kind of changed the game a little bit I think one of the things that really Hurt desktop Linux in the last 20 years. I mentioned when I first switched I was amazed at the speed How good everything looked the distributions that you know, like the Ubuntu releases and the Fedora releases. They look really clean They look really polished Open SUSE with KDE back then, you know, they were fast. They looked good They were well put together and you know these days I think what happened is Well, I think we got ahead of ourselves on trying to do too much We tried to make big changes. One of the biggest changes was Wayland many people don't realize just how long Wayland has been under development So Wayland really just became usable for some of the big desktop environments like GNOME and KDE What about five years ago maybe and for everything else Wayland has just become usable for a lot of people in the last like two or three years You know, like some of the tiling window managers that are out there Like a Sway or a Hyperland some people were using it early But depending on the hardware you are using if you were an NVIDIA user, especially and really else Other than the last two years You probably couldn't have even really ran those things and Wayland has been under development for 17 years Its initial release many people don't realize this was in 2008. I believe maybe 2009 It's been around a long time and even those early years, you know the redhat gang We're gonna move from x11 We're gonna create this new thing Wayland and you know, it'll be ready and I don't know a year or two And you know like 20 years later, we're still you know, waiting on the thing to become really good Although these days, you know, it's it's certainly usable There are still things that need to be worked on but I think in many ways that that project Wayland Really hurt us because I think if the desktop Linux community had really just focused on making x11 better Fixing what needed to be fixing in x11 adding the features that you were gonna add in Wayland Can you add that to x11 in many cases? I think this is the problem with free and open-source software Sometimes we try to reinvent the wheel when things get good and this happens every time when things seem like hey This is working perfect Then we fork it we break it and we move on to the next thing in many cases That's what happened with those early Ubuntu releases that were so great Ubuntu with GNOME 2 GNOME 2 was so great millions of people switched away from Windows To Linux because of that fantastic GNOME 2 desktop and when you combined it with the Compus Compositor with the whizbang effects and the floating windows wobbly windows and drawing fire on the screen That was amazing. And then because it was so perfect, you know in the late 2000s Now the GNOME had to kill GNOME 2 and move on to GNOME 3 which was a complete and total Dumpster fire in those first few releases and KDE really didn't do much better KDE at that time it was KDE 3 and KDE 3 everybody loved and then they moved to KDE 4 and Kind of like GNOME 3 the early releases of KDE 4 complete and total dumpster fire And those are the two most popular desktops on Linux So, you know, it's like everything's going great and then we're gonna break everything and then around that same time Oh, we're gonna start working on a new display server Wayland as well. Yeah, this is the thing This is one of the reasons why you know as a content creator many people often ask about Why I haven't taken a look at this distro or that distro on camera I've taken a look at hundreds of distros over the last nine years and but there's plenty that I haven't taken a look at on camera or I Have taken a look yet, but you guys didn't get to see it because I'm one of these people. I don't like Highlighting free and open source software that isn't ready for primetime like sometimes I'll I'll doubt there have been Literally, I bet 50 to 100 times. I've downloaded ISO Put the camera on turn the microphone on because it's a quick first look Yeah, I like to go in blind and some of these distros They either don't install correctly they do install but they're buggy as hell and I don't want to highlight that I don't want to throw shade on anybody that's working on a piece of free and open source software So I just scrapped the video, right? It never you know, I just I don't even bother editing it I I don't want to put it out publicly, right? I just killed the whole thing that was just a wasted day that day and that happens a lot Sometimes I record some of these videos on these Linux distros and I spend a couple hours, you know We're trying to work out the bugs and sometimes this is just so bad Even though I could get a video out and show it to you. I know People would be like man that thing looks like garbage. I you know DT I can't believe you're showing me this thing. So I don't put that stuff out another thing I've learned as a YouTube creator is I never Typically I never highlight brand new software stuff that just had its very first release Because a large percentage of that stuff does not ever see a second release and you see this I see this with a lot of other creators They will jump in on something that just had its very first release a piece of software Maybe it's a terminal or text editor or web browser, whatever it happens to be Hey, this new thing came out and it's going to be the best thing you ever leave Whatever it is, you're using and switch to this thing and within six months that piece of software that project behind it is dead This happens all the time and because of that typically I let something Marinate for a little bit right and the the 1.0 release is not when I'm gonna take a look at it, right? I need to see it, you know a couple, you know, three or four releases once I know hey that somebody's really working on this And they're putting in you know, some some constant effort. I go to the github to get lab. See there's regular commits Then I might take a look at it and this has become even more common I think in the last 20 years is more and more of this software is like this It's a one-time deal people will just put something out there for the public I just release this go take a look and that's the only release of it you get It seems like that's much more common now I think that's probably just my perception because there's much more software now more people are out there Putting free and open source software out there So, you know, I don't have any hard data to back that up, but I think that is one of the changes and I think Speaking of changes I think the community over the last 20 years has changed as far as free and open source communities and Linux related communities when I first switched to Linux there was There was communities that were Let's just say kind of harsh to newbies, right? You go to know a famous example the arch forms and ask a dumb question and they would be mean to you The Debian forums were kind of notorious for being kind of like that as well But that was not what we have today. We have communities today that are rather Distasteful and mean to people but they do it not because you asked a dumb question They do it for political reasons the communities the around freedom source software today have become very Political most of them have become way too political as far as there are many free and open source software projects now that openly state they're more about politics and social activism Rather than the actual software they're working on and that's something that it probably was around 20 years ago But it was much less common. You didn't you didn't see people so openly say hey, this is a software project But it's really a political organization. And by the way, if you don't agree with my politics I'm going to ban you kick you out of this project You have to agree with all of my stances 100% as the lead of this project if you don't You get publicly shamed and banned This is you didn't see that or at least it was much much less common 20 years ago And I think a lot of it just because you know The free and open source software space which much was much smaller back then Especially we were really fighting to get noticed as far as freedom source software and Linux the space was smaller and we were trying to attract people to the movement and the way to attract people to the movement is to Let everybody participate, right? That's the whole point of freedom as far as free software Everybody is welcome. So you saw Everybody, you know, it was broad messages in these projects. You had a free and open source software project You didn't make the message so narrow, you know, they're not just talking about the software You know, I'm talking about the message as far as what you're putting out to the community, you know, everybody's welcome Doesn't matter as long as you respect the Ideals and free software movement and the open source software movement come on in but now we have these really narrow-minded Political organizations that are putting out free and open source software and because their message is so narrow It's all about a certain set of political principles literally, it disqualifies Well over half the population in most cases and in some cases 90% plus of the population from actually being a part of your organization because you've made this message that you're trying to get out so narrow that most people just We can't participate and I think one of the things that changed all of these freedom source software communities Over the last 20 years why they went from not really being all that political to being very political like that's the default stance Now is this we have to have these political Ideological kind of views on everything and we have to demand 100% compliance from everybody social media social media Didn't really exist 20 years ago. It was in its infancy and then social media kind of rotted people's brains It became everybody had to be on Facebook and Twitter and it's just you're constantly Bombarded with all of this negativity and hate on social media if you just get away from social media It's the world is not a violent angry hateful place At least it's not the way it's portrayed on social media But many people will imagine social media is the real world and then they bring that stuff Into all aspects of their life such as their software projects And what's really bad is the creators of these social media mega sites people like Mark Zuckerberg, for example He knows what he's doing with Facebook. He knows that Facebook caters to Anger hate violence. He knows it's destructive. He knows social media is addictive He knows that in many cases these kinds of social media sites they cater to Psychopaths sociopaths, you know people that in regular life They have no outlet to be What they could be right on on social media. It's like a a psychopath He can be his normal self on the Internet, especially Anonymously on social media out in the real world some wacko some complete nutjob He's not gonna get very far but on social media. These people are given a voice in many cases They're given positions of prominence What I find funny is because I don't live in the world of social media, right? I don't have any of that stuff. I can tell you that, you know in the last 20 years There is a lot less for example Racism and bigotry in the world But if you ask people today that are tied into social media where social media is their world They'll say it's the most racist the most hateful place. This is the most a horrible time to live in That's because they have been again. Their mind has kind of been polluted by social media in many cases the only reason there is all this political hate and religious hate and Racial hatred in the world. It's all generated by social media What's an another crazy thing here in the last few years, especially is the fact that bots? Run the internet most of the stuff that's on social media Especially the hateful stuff the people that are out there spouting Propaganda or the social activism kind of post most of that is not even real people. This is powerful organizations Billion-dollar corporations that want to push a message some cases countries trying to push a message there 70 80 percent of the stuff you see on social media. It's probably not even real post by real people That's how bad it's gotten but the 20% that are real people that are participating in this stuff in many cases They don't recognize that that's the game. They don't realize that in some cases. They're a mark, right? They're being conned. They don't realize in many cases. You're just being played You're being manipulated to push a certain social activist agenda And you don't even realize that you're bought into a little bit of some bullshit But here's the thing from then till now You know as social media really in the early days, you know I don't think it was doing much damage and then I would say especially about five to ten years ago I think was the heyday of social media Facebook and Twitter especially and now I do see a swing back The other direction. I think people now realize how dangerous social media is Especially to the people that are addicted to it that the people that have been manipulated By all the automated spam and bots that they don't realize. Oh, it's not even real people You know, I think nowadays some people are waking up and I see a lot more people getting off social media in general I see a lot more people doing things like Tech detox digital detox where you just get off the phone, right you get off the phone get off the computer Uninstall all those social media apps, especially turn off the notifications and just get away for a few days in some cases a few weeks At a time, hopefully permanently. That's what I did. You know, I am one of the things for me I did have a Facebook account and a Twitter account both for a few months and I can say They didn't do much for me I recognized right away that this was not real life that you know This was a game for one thing just in general you guys if you've been following my channel for the last nine years You probably know I'm not much of a bullshitter. I just call things as it is I kind of look at the world as it is. Yeah, I look at reality and I knew right away Facebook was not reality and damn sure Twitter was not reality So I eventually deleted those accounts, you know I've probably spent six months on each of them and then you know, I got rid of them and that was Probably nearly ten years ago that I got off of those platforms and I'm glad and I've tried to tell people for a long time Hey get off get off those platforms. You don't need to be there Well, I need to be there because all my friends and family are on there Well, you still have your friends and family in real life, right? It's like people don't realize that You can actually pick up a phone and call a friend or a family member or go to their house If they live in the same town as you why are you talking to them on friggin Facebook? But I think this is a war we're winning. I think more and more people Even if they don't get off of social media, I think most people now actually do recognize it's dangerous Like that's become normal used to ten years ago when I told people to get off social media people would tell me I'm crazy That I'm paranoid a conspiracy theorist. I don't know what the hell I'm talking about now pretty much everybody if I say a social media It's dangerous. They're like, yeah, okay. I'm still not gonna get off of it, but okay They recognize that at least that's true Also, you know from then till now YouTube has changed the YouTube community has changed especially around Linux, right? We have so many more Linux content creators now than when I started nine years ago The Linux YouTube community was a much smaller place. We probably have 20 times the Linux content On YouTube now that we had when I started easily that why do we have so many more Linux content creators? And so much more Linux content is because Linux itself is vastly more popular than it was just nine years ago Right Linux was probably still 1% as far as desktop market share nine years ago And now we're hovering somewhere around the 5 to 6 percent range like Linux Popularity is growing fast on the desktop. And when you think about that going from 1% to 5% What now that's five times as many users and you're gonna see a lot more people craving Linux content You're gonna see a lot more people providing Linux content now, and I think that's a great thing It's one of the things that I've always wanted Especially here in the last few years as you know, I've been doing Linux content for a long time I've covered so many different topics and I don't like sometimes Going back and covering the same topics again, you know You get burnt out talking about the same things again over and over and over and you know I do think it's important to talk about some of this stuff Issues related to free and open-source software and Linux and at some point I'm not gonna be doing this anymore But I still want other people doing this. I want as many people in this space as possible I want free and open-source software to be as Popular as it possibly can I want Linux especially as a desktop operating system as an alternative to proprietary Software like Windows and Mac. I want Linux to be as popular as it possibly can So I love the fact that we have so many fantastic Linux content creators these days so there you have it just a little bit of a rant as I ramble on about some of the things that have changed over The years as far as tech and Linux and YouTube and everything else. I hope you enjoyed this little bit of a ramble It's not my typical kind of content where it was a little bit unstructured Just turn on the camera and start talking but hopefully you got a little bit of something out of it. Peace guys