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Cake day: June 6th, 2025

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  • Personally, basically no one I know uses the app stores on windows or macos much. These app stores are actually functional in that they have proprietary apps and allow purchases. There is basically 0 chance Linux will become popular if you can only install things through an app store (especially those that make it hard/impossible to buy proprietary apps). Additionally, desktop Linux is not particularly secure anyway. Flatpaks are helpful here, but most require manual tuning of their sandbox to actually be secure, which the average user is 100% not gonna do. On top of this, what do you do when an app is not available in your curated app store? Do you download it directly online? Do you trust some random repository you find online that can be filled with who knows what at a later point? Or do you just say “oh well sucks to be you I guess?” If you download it directly online, then it may not even have dependency information. If it doesn’t embed dependency information, then it’s basically useless to your average person. It also has the problem you mentioned of someone downloading the wrong executable. Likewise, the other two options are IMO just not viable.

    IMO, the only way for a package manager/app store solution to work is:

    1. The platform is built around it from day 1
    2. The platform has a large number of developers submitting their packages to it (as opposed to the distro maintainers having to track down changes themselves)
    3. The app store has payment methods
    4. The app store has proprietary apps
    5. The app store has a large number of reviewers that can check the apps submitted in a timely manner
    6. Probably bundling dependencies with the apps.
    7. The app store has a functional review system with users actually leaving reviews.
    8. Going along with the reviews, going through the app store (as opposed to using the package manager directly) may need to be a requirement to encourage reviews, at least at first.

    Basically, it needs to be an iOS/Android situation, with a similarly large company backing it. I should also note that it’s possible to install malware on iOS/Android, just harder, and the scope is usually less severe because of sandboxing.

    EDIT: Also, it’s entirely possible to do one-click installs in a “safe” way, by requiring that developers get their apps signed by whoever makes the distro (like macos gatekeeper or whatever it’s called).

    EDIT 2: I should also note that just being “different” is enough for people not to use something. If something basic, like the way to install apps, is different enough, people may just decide they don’t like it. My relatives would likely do this, for instance.


    • Needs to come pre-installed on computers.
    • Pre-installed distro needs to support one-click installation (like .app or .exe).
    • Pre-installed distro needs to have be easily searchable (for problems, and e.g. searching “chrome DISTRO_NAME” needs to pop up with a link to the one-click installer).
    • Pre-installed distro needs to run perfectly out-of-the-box, no fiddling with drivers, no needing to issue a random shell command for some random issue.
    • UI needs to be intuitive. Probably something like KDE. Could maybe do Elementary or GNOME with dash-to-dock or something.
    • Updates should be easy. Ideally apps can self-update or the apps will indicate if they need an update and have a button opening up an updater that can update all your apps/the OS.
    • Updates for minor programs need to be hidden/rolled into OS updates. Most people aren’t gonna want to see that glibc updated.
    • Better management of stuff like VPNs (probably not important for the average user, but e.g. NetworkManager’s GUI support is kinda shit).
    • If using GNOME, need to have app indicator stuff pre-installed (if I’m being honest, the fact it’s not built-in is absurd).
    • Needs to come with good basic apps. Some of the default apps included with DEs are kinda shit. There is still no truly good mail client IMO (at least that doesn’t look dated AF).

    Probably more.

    EDIT: Something like Lutris should probably be integrated into the OS. Installing non-Steam games is a minor hassle at the moment IMO.




  • Tbh I would not be at all surprised if they were vibe coding. The snafu with the new authenticator app logging secrets, them just churning out random new apps no one asked for instead of meaningfully improving their existing products, claiming to open-source all their apps despite the Android calendar app still (after years) not being open-sourced (and with a GitHub link on their web page that implies all their code is available, but it in fact just links to the web clients), etc. have all combined to the point where I simply no longer trust them.





  • My dude, the chips aren’t manufactured in the US. If the tariffs don’t apply to the chips that are inherently imported from outside the US since basically only TSMC and Samsung make them at this point, then there is no tariff at all. Companies in the US import the chips, then use the imported chips as part of their products. All the companies in the US do is assemble the imported parts (and sometimes not even that).

    EDIT: Ah, there was a miscommunication. I think we’re both saying the same thing at this point. Well, mostly the same, since this doesn’t really help US companies and just drives up prices for everything.






  • Looking into it, the US implementation goes down into the components, so yes. Except, I believe it’d be $50 chip @ 100%, other components at whatever tariff rates they may have, and then the 15% per-country/region tariff applies to all of it on top. So if the other components have no tariffs, it’d be $172.50. I’m now wondering how expensive everything would end up if you have tariffs on materials as well.

    In any case though, it becomes ludicrously expensive no matter what because you’re at most dodging the 15%.

    EDIT: You can also dodge some of the tariffs if some percentage of the product is made in the US. I wonder if you’d be able to dodge the chip tariff if the materials for it were partially sourced from the US. If possible, that’d probably be cheaper for companies than actually trying to manufacture chips here.

    EDIT 2: Actually your calculation may be right, I’m having a hard time finding how they’re actually meant to be calculated. Admittedly it seems a bit weird to me that the rate would override the country-specific rate and thus be the same for chips from the EU and China, but I suppose none of this makes sense in the first place.