• Muffi@programming.dev
    371·
    6 hours ago

    The enshittification og Ubuntu and Firefox these last years have been tragic to watch, even though i no longer use any of them.

    • BrilliantBadger@piefed.caEnglish
      11·
      4 hours ago

      Librewolf has done a great job and has a strong stance on disabling/removing AI pieces

      But yeah, it’s just sad to always be fighting against the tide

    • woelkchen@lemmy.world
      14·
      6 hours ago

      At least Firefox recently got a 1-click “AI off” button. I’d prefer if Mozilla concentrated on the rendering engine first and foremost but that 1-click solution isn’t so bad. So at least there’s that.

        • woelkchen@lemmy.world
          4·
          3 hours ago

          I’ll stop looking for alternatives when it becomes a one click AI on button instead.

          Problem is that well maintained alternatives without that shit don’t exist. Sure, there are Chromium and Firefox forks that strip all that shit but are you really willing to trust you data security with a fork created by two dudes in their free time to deliver updates the same day as their upstream projects? I’m not. So I rather use Firefox, turn that shit off manually and continue to hope that Servo will be good enough in two years (doubtful).

            • woelkchen@lemmy.world
              1·
              3 hours ago

              Yup, that’s why I’m still looking.

              I think the best current candidate is WebKit-GTK but here’s the looking bit again: I’m looking for a WebKit-GTK browser that adopts traditional cross-desktop UX and not GNOME header bars.

  • SuperPengato@scribe.disroot.org
    961·
    8 hours ago

    What was that joke about Firefox again? “We’re the browser beloved for being the only one not hitting our dick with a hammer. Now, you’re probably wondering why we brought this hammer and and took out our dick. Well you see…”

    More seriously, I think until the bubble pops, writing “AI” anywhere is a way for companies to attract fundings, and that money is too easy for many to pass.

    That’s why I tend to trust community managed distros over corpo ones. I don’t see Arch or Debian pulling this bullshit.

    Tho, I’d still be suspicious of the other big private company, Redhat; which is very involved in maintaining Systemd.

    Honestly, if it comes to this I’ll distro-hop as far as I need to escape AI.

    • username_1@programming.dev
      18·
      8 hours ago

      When Ubuntu was just appearing I was using Debian. People laughed at me, saying I am a little bit slowpoke. Now it looks like Ubuntu is starting to die, applying strange decisions. I still use Debian. Well…

      • ikt@aussie.zone
        16·
        6 hours ago

        When Ubuntu was just appearing I was using Debian. People laughed at me, saying I am a little bit slowpoke

        Why are you offended being called a slowpoke using slowpoke OS?

        I use it on my server because of this reason

        Now it looks like Ubuntu is starting to die

        Its been dead according to linux purists since 2011 when they went to Unity over Gnome or KDE so ignore them :P

      • thingsiplay@lemmy.ml
        3·
        7 hours ago

        Ubuntu was easier to use out of the box, especially for some hardware like Nvidia hardware in example. Also the software from its repository and the Kernel is not updated nearly as often as Ubuntu. All of this makes it harder to use for Gaming oriented people. Back then Debian users laughed at me (Ubuntu user back then) for using a “toy” distribution. But Debian was not a good option for me back then.

        My point is, it does not matter if someone laughs at you. Just use the best option for you.

        • woelkchen@lemmy.world
          1·
          7 hours ago

          Just use the best option for you.

          Problem is when people don’t use what option is best for them and make everything worse for the people who are then asked to help them (or even worse are completely unrelated and have to bear the burden anyway). There are fundamental problems how Canonical distributes security fixes (many locked behind Ubuntu Pro which is free for personal use but still requires signing up for it) and these problems are inherited by Ubuntu remixes like Mint and popOS.

        • dgdft@lemmy.worldEnglish
          51·
          7 hours ago

          I’ve been gaming on Debian stable for 6-7 years now; works great.

          • popcar2@programming.devEnglish
            1·
            5 hours ago

            If you’re playing modern games that just released, they often need the newest graphics drivers to run well and look right. It also helps to have the most modern version of apps like Heroic Games Launcher and stuff, but Flatpak has solved that somewhat.

            If anyone here games a lot, I’d recommend a more rolling release distro (or the version of Debian that updates packages quickly, forgot its name).

        • radar@programming.devEnglish
          3·
          8 hours ago

          I game on Debian unstable daily. I don’t have the newest hardware but most things work about as well as Windows

        • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
          21·
          8 hours ago

          debian gamer here. Things suck because I have a non-muxing, bullshit on board graphics card not because of Debian. I have the same issues on Bazzite, Pika Os and Nobara

  • [object Object]@lemmy.ca
    9·
    7 hours ago

    All I really want related to AI in my OS is:

    • The ability to systematically create file embeddings and use them for semantic search. This tech is now 9 years old, it’s not wildly energy inefficient, it only sucks that when you change the model you need to recreate the entire index.
    • A good accessibility interface that AI tools incidentally benefit from
    • Accessibility features for humans, like how Apple lets you select text on any image. Or I can send an image to Gemma 4 and the transcriptions are actually quite good running locally (though the model is large)
  • Keshara@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    25·
    9 hours ago

    This is going to be all about how they implement it imo. There was a specific line in that article “for those who want it”, if they go for an opt-in approach which only then installs the AI capabilities, then yeah okay I don’t mind as an end-user.

    If however Canonical implement AI into Ubuntu without being opt-in, then I’m out and never turning back.

  • onlinepersona@programming.dev
    103·
    8 hours ago

    Didn’t hey start putting ads into their start menu, search results, or something? This is not really a surprise given that trajectory.

    • misk@piefed.socialOPEnglish
      8·
      8 hours ago

      The only ads I notice is that apt shows how many packages can be updated through an optional paid Expanded Security Maintenance. This isn’t very obtrusive but I’m on a 4 year old LTS release currently so things might have changed.

      • woelkchen@lemmy.world
        1·
        3 hours ago

        The only ads I notice is that apt shows how many packages can be updated through an optional paid Expanded Security Maintenance. This isn’t very obtrusive but I’m on a 4 year old LTS release currently so things might have changed.

        Receiving updates for anything in Universe requires Ubuntu Pro which is free for home users but still requires signing up to give you access to that update repository and once you sign up, they can match your account with what you install/update, so there is server-side tracking. In theory there is the possibility of community-maintained updates there but that required adhering to Canonical’s draconian version freeze rules. Something Fedora and its derivates do not have to that degree (during a release cycle any update is fine if it doesn’t break compatibility).

      • onlinepersona@programming.dev
        2·
        7 hours ago

        I was remembering my Ubuntu Unity days which apparently ended in 2012 or so. Didn’t realise it was so long ago.

        Ubuntu might’ve had ads in the OS even before Microslop. Who knows, maybe they even gave them the idea.