It is so funny when people claim Linux authority by saying, “I’ve been using Linux since the 2000s…”Sit down.
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It is so funny when people claim Linux authority by saying, “I’ve been using Linux since the 2000s…”
Sit down. My first distro was Slackware on a 200Mhz Pentium MMX. And back then, window managers were the hotness, not desktop environments. Back in my day, we fiddled with Xeyes in IceWM—and we liked it.
But none of that vintage cred actually matters, because Linux never wins people over with nostalgia. It wins people over when it finally does the thing they care about.
I abandoned Linux in the early 2010s for the same reason most people did: it didn’t have the apps or the games I needed. The OS was fine. The software ecosystem wasn’t.
What brought me back? Gaming. Not philosophy, not ideology, not a love of fiddling with config files.
Gaming forced Linux to solve real, modern problems—drivers, performance, Vulkan, translation layers, graphics pipelines. And once those problems got solved, the benefits spilled into everything else: creative apps, productivity apps, niche tools, Windows compatibility layers that actually work.
This is what people still don’t get: regular users don’t care about Wayland vs Xorg, package formats, compositor drama, or kernel minutiae. They care about whether the apps they need will run with minimal friction.
An operating system succeeds when it disappears into the background and lets people use their software. For the first time, Linux is genuinely doing that—and that’s why the momentum is finally real. -
It is so funny when people claim Linux authority by saying, “I’ve been using Linux since the 2000s…”
Sit down. My first distro was Slackware on a 200Mhz Pentium MMX. And back then, window managers were the hotness, not desktop environments. Back in my day, we fiddled with Xeyes in IceWM—and we liked it.
But none of that vintage cred actually matters, because Linux never wins people over with nostalgia. It wins people over when it finally does the thing they care about.
I abandoned Linux in the early 2010s for the same reason most people did: it didn’t have the apps or the games I needed. The OS was fine. The software ecosystem wasn’t.
What brought me back? Gaming. Not philosophy, not ideology, not a love of fiddling with config files.
Gaming forced Linux to solve real, modern problems—drivers, performance, Vulkan, translation layers, graphics pipelines. And once those problems got solved, the benefits spilled into everything else: creative apps, productivity apps, niche tools, Windows compatibility layers that actually work.
This is what people still don’t get: regular users don’t care about Wayland vs Xorg, package formats, compositor drama, or kernel minutiae. They care about whether the apps they need will run with minimal friction.
An operating system succeeds when it disappears into the background and lets people use their software. For the first time, Linux is genuinely doing that—and that’s why the momentum is finally real.Chris Trottier i mostly agree with your final point, but the first two paragraphs are absolutely unnecessary gatekeeping.
Sit down. My first distro was Slackware on a 200Mhz Pentium MMX. And back then, window managers were the hotness, not desktop environments. Back in my day, we fiddled with Xeyes in IceWM—and we liked it.
and there are people who have used linux longer than you! with twm, fvwm and so on. This argument holds absolutely no water unless you’re Torvalds himself. It reads like you’re conflating a bunch of concepts into one, and this doesn’t work.
and I don’t think there’s any shame in saying that I’ve been using $software since $year and that’s why I’m feeling more knowledgeable about it than someone who started yesterday. 2000s ended 15 years ago, this is already a SIGNIFICANT amount of time
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Chris Trottier i mostly agree with your final point, but the first two paragraphs are absolutely unnecessary gatekeeping.
Sit down. My first distro was Slackware on a 200Mhz Pentium MMX. And back then, window managers were the hotness, not desktop environments. Back in my day, we fiddled with Xeyes in IceWM—and we liked it.
and there are people who have used linux longer than you! with twm, fvwm and so on. This argument holds absolutely no water unless you’re Torvalds himself. It reads like you’re conflating a bunch of concepts into one, and this doesn’t work.
and I don’t think there’s any shame in saying that I’ve been using $software since $year and that’s why I’m feeling more knowledgeable about it than someone who started yesterday. 2000s ended 15 years ago, this is already a SIGNIFICANT amount of time
int*domi;*domi=0; You didn’t actually read what I wrote.
I wasn’t gatekeeping. I was making fun of the idea that old Linux war stories matter. The entire point is right here:
But none of that vintage cred actually matters, because Linux never wins people over with nostalgia. It wins people over when it finally does the thing they care about.
I was saying the opposite of what you think. My post was critiquing the idea that longevity equals authority, not endorsing it.
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int*domi;*domi=0; You didn’t actually read what I wrote.
I wasn’t gatekeeping. I was making fun of the idea that old Linux war stories matter. The entire point is right here:
But none of that vintage cred actually matters, because Linux never wins people over with nostalgia. It wins people over when it finally does the thing they care about.
I was saying the opposite of what you think. My post was critiquing the idea that longevity equals authority, not endorsing it.
@atomicpoet you didn't actually read what @domi wrote
if your point is that that doesn't matter, then don't say it - and especially not with such egotistical tone
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@atomicpoet you didn't actually read what @domi wrote
if your point is that that doesn't matter, then don't say it - and especially not with such egotistical tone
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@atomicpoet ah yes, "it's everyone else who's wrong, and it's all their faults" is the perfect example of humility
oh, wait
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Chris Trottier xyhhx if you want a “scare”, you should launch it as
xeyes -biblicallyAccurate:^)the whole point of my message was that you went to complain about people using “IN MY TIMES…” as a point of pride, only to use “but in MY times!” as a point of reference in your next paragraph. it makes your previous words sound ingenuine and gatekeepy.
and I don’t think anyone’s proud of running xeyes “back in the day”. I’m feeling pride of how early I started messing with Linux (I was 7-8y/o, mid-2009), and I feel that because I put thousands of hours into it, I’m more experienced now than I would have been if I started later. My nostalgia to certain software is entirely separate from that sense of pride, and I don’t get why you’re so keen on conflating the two
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@atomicpoet ah yes, "it's everyone else who's wrong, and it's all their faults" is the perfect example of humility
oh, wait
@xyhhx @domi I promise the beginning of the post was a joke—I know humour can be tricky to parse online. Some folks have a sixth sense for it, and others… well, let’s just say their internal laugh-track hasn’t been patched since kernel 2.4.
All good though. If you ever want a reboot into “things that are actually funny,” I’m happy to help. -
Chris Trottier xyhhx if you want a “scare”, you should launch it as
xeyes -biblicallyAccurate:^)the whole point of my message was that you went to complain about people using “IN MY TIMES…” as a point of pride, only to use “but in MY times!” as a point of reference in your next paragraph. it makes your previous words sound ingenuine and gatekeepy.
and I don’t think anyone’s proud of running xeyes “back in the day”. I’m feeling pride of how early I started messing with Linux (I was 7-8y/o, mid-2009), and I feel that because I put thousands of hours into it, I’m more experienced now than I would have been if I started later. My nostalgia to certain software is entirely separate from that sense of pride, and I don’t get why you’re so keen on conflating the two
@domi @xyhhx I think there’s a small misunderstanding here.
There’s nothing wrong with nostalgia or mentioning how long you’ve been using Linux. That part is totally fine—we all have our own history with the platform.
My point was simply that longevity doesn’t automatically translate into authority. My own experience tinkering with Xeyes in 1998 doesn’t give me any special insight today. It just means I was a kid having fun with a goofy little program.
The post was meant to poke fun at that idea, not at anyone’s personal history.
And honestly, I appreciate that you caught the humour in it—Xeyes is inherently funny.
