The gatekeeping I was referring to is giving people shit for being weebs, furries, etc. etc. Feels skeezy and moralistic. One of my favourite things about the Linux community is how openly eccentric so many people are. Even if it isn’t my aesthetic it’s way less contrived than the bland wastelands that corporate culture generates.
It wasn’t really relevant to your question, but you do you, weeb OP.
Idk, I feel like gatekeeping is a bigger problem than anime thumbnails.
I feel like every larger open source project that doesn’t have a Tyson Tan designed mascot doesn’t have one because they refused to let him make one for them.
I agree that this is a sad thing, but I guess not everyone in the Linux world is into furry waifus.
Sway is just well made, solid and reliable. It does what you need it to do, and it does it properly.
I can declare the complete state of my systems in a config file that I store on sourcehut with git and pull down to have a fully configured system on new hardware whenever I want it.
I can use tiling window managers.
I can work with native containers easily.
I can run an operating system that is designed to be the most useful tool it can be, not the most profitable product it can be.
I use them like browser tabs so I’ve had like 20-30 going at once before on sway.
I like it quite a lot on my projector / media pc, but I wouldn’t daily it over sway with custom hotkeys. Cosmic is definitely turning my head tho…
Tried installing debian in 2002 but had no idea what I was doing editing xorg configs so didn’t succeed. Succeeded in running knoppix soon after, but didn’t really know what to do with it because I mainly used a computer for gaming in those days.
Ran ubuntu in 2007 for a while but I needed to do too many things in a VM so I skulked back to windows.
Used linux for random bits and pieces over the years but was always too tied to art software and games. Proton fixed the games side of things in 2018 so I decided to go all in reworking my art workflow to be linux focused because I wanted not to worry about needing a windows license for all my machines, buying expensive software, etc. etc. (And I wanted to get into creative programming more.)
Running linux has made automation and programming a much more seamless part of the way I use computers and I am endlessly grateful for this. General computing is fun again and I now have a heap of skills I always wanted.
This is probably going to be the right choice. Captive markets are a thing and its not always practical for individuals to get out of them. Changing a good worklfow isn’t likely to be worth it unless there’s a different workflow you want more.
I wanted what I get with Linux more than I wanted any particular element of what my creative workflow was on Windows, but I’ve never really been super comfortable with the DAW-VST paradigm for music production in general. I’m way happier having to put a bit more work into doing custom stuff my own way than being locked out of entire approaches because that’s not how the software is intended to be used and I’m not in the target demographic for pricing. (I’m looking at you specifically, notch and touchdesigner.)
I don’t think there’s a clear best here. If you find using wine easier than learning new music software, then sticking with what you know is best. If you’re flexible about your process, there are a lot of amazing free tools and you’ll probably have a more seamless time developing a workflow around them.
Personally I think learning different software is a great way to build a more flexible understanding of the fundamentals of music production, but everyone has different needs so I don’t think there’s a one size fits all approach.
Ardour recently go a lot of Ableton style features in version 7. Zrhythm looks pretty solid. Reaper isn’t foss, but is run by a small & trustworthy team and is my main DAW, though I’m exploring less daw heavy workflows recently. VCV Rack is an incredible piece of software that has thousands of modules and is like having an entire warehouse full of modular synth gear but digitally. Cardinal is a fully self contained version of VCV Rack that works as a plugin and has ~1000 open source modules built in. Bitwig isn’t foss, but borrows heavily from the Ableton paradigm, has their own twist, and has always natively supported linux. Tracktion Waveform isn’t foss but looks pretty cool, depending on what suits your workflow.
At the moment I like foot because it’s simple and powerful. I did some benchmarks running the notcurses demo with both foot and kitty on my pretty lightweight mini pc and foot ran significantly faster, but mainly I just prefer its balance of power and minimalism over other stuff I’ve tried so far.
Here’s the straightforward version of why I use it:
The entire state of your operating system is defined in a config file, and changes are made by changing the config file. This makes it super easy to reproduce your exact system many times and to know where all the many different configuration elements that describe your system are located.
Updates are applied atomically, so you don’t have to worry about interrupting the update process and if it fails, the previous state of your system is still bootable. By default every time you change something, you get another option in the boot menu to roll back to.
Making container-like sub systems is super easy when you’re familiar with nix, so you can have as many different enclaves as you like for different software versions, development environments, desktop setups, whatever without taking a performance hit. Old versions of stuff are very accessible without breaking your new stuff.
The package manager has a lot of software and accessing nonfree stuff is straightforward. Guix looks rad, but nix ended up being the more practical compromise for my usecase. I didn’t want to have to package a heap of software the moment I made the switch.
That is certainly one use of the word gatekeeping. Another common use of the word is:
“when someone takes it upon themselves to decide who does or does not have access or rights to a community or identity”.