Oh. Good one. Markdown everywhere. Slack always pissed me off for it’s sub par markdown support.

Using an LLM to come up with function names for transpiled code would be a good idea, but other than that. Nope.

I’d probably use selenium. But that depends.

Oh gawd. That would be so horrible! Is there a project o compile JavaScript to bytecode? With like LLVM? There must be, but I haven’t heard of it. I shouldn’t even say anything because I will be better off pretending it doesn’t exist.

The Wittgensteinian Ladder. The pedagogical expedient misinformation.

Oh. Yeah. That’s a good point. When I taught a dead language, I would tell my students that all grammars lie to you, but some of the lies are useful.

Or you get common misconceptions that were never facts. Like you only use 10% of your brain. I don’t think science ever said that, but man the idea is/was really common.

It’s kind of a fun idea, but as everyone has pointed out: every school is different, even of there is some centralized board of education, some times teachers just say dumb shit.

Also, when does a fact become a fact? Like, dinosaurs had feathers. It was theorized, then debated, then clarified, and now there are some reasonable consensus about it, but theropauds probably still aren’t presented as having feathers in some books. And what teachers know this?

I totally get why you wouldn’t say Arch is fun. I’m not sure if I actually like arch or if I’m a masochist, however I will say, I learned a lot about the whole OS by installing it, and fixing it when it broke. It made me much more comfortable with using Linux. I haven’t used it in a couple of years, but I am thinking about reinstalling it. Nostalgia is a bad thing :-)

I like the ideas some other people mention. Specifically: read about your specific hardware and the distro of Linux you want to install. Then, make sure you are using as many open source cross platforms apps as you can, so when you do switch, you will be in familiar territory. I do think the criticisms of Ubuntu as a bad first choice are interesting, and maybe true, but I wouldn’t over look downstream distros like Pop!_OS. It’s Ubuntu, but with Flat packs and a distinctive Desktop Environment. Mint might also be a good choice, I know lots of people who like it (I don’t personally, but to each their own).

When I started on Linux, I installed Arch on an old MacBook. In those days apple was using amd64, but they were not friendly with Linux or the rest of the computing world. However it was older hardware, and the Arch Wiki had a great page on how to install Linux for that particular configuration. Arch is not a beginner friendly distro, but the wiki is fantastic, and so well documented.

But my main piece of distinctive advice is just do it. If you have read a few articles and have a pretty good sense of what is required (and are running common, last generation hardware), just jump in. You will probably never “feel” ready, and you will come across unique problems that no starter guide will prepare you for. So just go for it, and learn along the way.

Oh! I didn’t know about this! Thanks for posting it

Pine64’s laptops are ARM, but not not RISC-V. they do sell a RISC-V soc (the Star64), but the Rockpro64 chip is ARM.

I want an ARM laptop, but the PinebookPro was a little underpowered for me to use. Some day.

Python is powerful because it easily wraps C libraries that do real work! Just kidding mostly.

But yeah, js isn’t a language I would describe as powerful. Ubiquitous? More capable than you would expect given it’s history? Bloated?

I have had a paper map direct me through a gated community. Thankfully the tools in the truck unfastened the hinges. Still bugs me. It was a county road!

Same. Same. I know some people use their phones, or GPS devices, but when I’m backpacking, I want a paper map and a compass. I bought two a few months back for planning a trips this summer.

The lack of advertising is a big one, that’s for sure. And Dell isn’t spending any of their advertisement budget to brag about Linux.

Maybe that’s what canonical should spend it’s money on rather than snaps :-) (half joking…maybe )

On the one hand, I think you are right, people who know can find a Linux computer if they know where to look. And they should be easier to find. On the other hand, I don’t think many people by laptops at Best Buy any more. Maybe if BestBuy had one people would try it and see, but I feel like best buy is the place you go to buy a TV or a charging chord for your phone.

You can go to the Dell website today and filter by Operating System and select Ubuntu. Through Project Sputnik, Dell has been selling laptops with Ubuntu for over a decade. It’s a pretty interesting story, but I couldn’t find a summary of it online easily.

HP sold he DevOne, it had PopOS on it. Dell sells an XPS developer machine that has Ubuntu pre installed. System76, Entroware, and Tuxedo computers have all been selling Linux hardware for a long time. So there are viable commercial options. I wish the DevOne were going to get refreshed, it looks like a nice machine but alas, I don’t think it will.

Linux Dev Time did a episode on this, it’s really good! https://www.linuxdevtime.com/linux-dev-time-episode-97/