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  • Showing only topics with the tag "open source". Back to normal view
    1. Switching from Linux to BSD: What do you miss?

      There seems to be a trend lately of people switching over to BSD operating systems. Having read some blog posts on the matter and now given the recent system-d controversy, I'm genuinely curious...

      There seems to be a trend lately of people switching over to BSD operating systems. Having read some blog posts on the matter and now given the recent system-d controversy, I'm genuinely curious to give FreeBSD or OpenBSD a go as my main OS.

      For those who have switched over to BSD, what are some problems you've encountered and/or what are some things you miss?

      31 votes
    2. What are some good open source games?

      I've found a few really, honestly fantastic open source games and I'd like to share them and discover some new ones too. Firstly, NullpoMino is a fantastic cross-platform Tetris clone. It's...

      I've found a few really, honestly fantastic open source games and I'd like to share them and discover some new ones too.

      Firstly, NullpoMino is a fantastic cross-platform Tetris clone. It's highly, highly customizable and is lots of fun to play. It's got a great community over at Hard Drop, and if you like Tetris - you'll like NullpoMino. However, there are a few issues with it; one in particular being the relatively low skill ceiling of Marathon. The skill ceiling is very low (compared to other titles such as the NES edition), but this is solely exclusive to Marathon as far as I know. It turns into a test of patience rather than skill. Another issue is with installation; as the game was made for 32 bit systems it is rather slow, and it's finicky to run on Linux. However, it is a fantastic Tetris title (and open source!)

      Another good open-source game is Osu! I've never played it competitively, but it's a fair bit of fun to play with friends and is a great game. It's cross-platform, although I've only ever played it on Windows, and it has a nice community. Fantastic game that I don't see mentioned too much.

      The last game for this post is SuperTuxKart. It serves as a great kart-racing game, that's fun and has a low barrier to entry. Graphically, it's not drop-dead gorgeous, but it's not bad at all either. It's decent solo, and a lot of fun with friends. Would highly recommend. Cross-platform and available as a snap.

      21 votes
    3. Linux users: after finishing distro hopping, where did you land?

      I've been running Linux for a little over a year now and, after a recent conversation on Tildes, I decided that I need to wipe and re-install so that I can enable full-disk encryption. Thus, right...

      I've been running Linux for a little over a year now and, after a recent conversation on Tildes, I decided that I need to wipe and re-install so that I can enable full-disk encryption.

      Thus, right now I'm shopping around for a distro and trying out different live environments to find something that works for me. My question isn't necessarily for right now though (my hardware is old enough that I'm definitely going to need to use a lightweight distro, which severely limits my options). It's more for the future, in that I plan to replace this computer in a year or two with something up-to-date, which means I'll be able to run any distro under the sun! Any!

      So, I'm curious to hear from people who have found their "forever distro." What do you run for your everyday use, and why? Also, what's your level of technical expertise? I am very far from a power-user at present, but I'd like to be somewhere closer to that when I replace my computer.

      44 votes
    4. Tildes and Deimos appreciation & how can we help?

      Designing, coding, moderating, promoting and doing all the business admin on Tildes must be fairly thankless. But without all this effort we'd not be able to enjoy discussions with each other &...

      Designing, coding, moderating, promoting and doing all the business admin on Tildes must be fairly thankless. But without all this effort we'd not be able to enjoy discussions with each other & share all this interesting content. I don't feel that much appreciation is really shown on here (except maybe miss-voting on all Deimos' comments).

      But it is a little awkward, spurious thanks all over the place would just be noise. I thought I'd make a topic especially for people to say thanks in. I'm really enjoying Tildes content and discussion. Plus I'm a big believer in the goals of Tildes as laid out in the docs.

      So I'd like to say a big thank you to Deimos and other useful contributors! Thanks for making the site we have to use today and dreaming of the hopefully better possible site we'll see in the future.

      I'm also hoping to start a discussion on what enthusiastic Tildes users can do to most usefully help make Tildes good now and better in the future.

      A list of stuff we can do:

      • Obviously posting lots of good content and interesting discussions. Voting honestly and using comment labels judiciously.

      • You can donate and currently we can see Tildes Patreon is at $375 a month. Deimos posted some more figures recently.

      • We all regularly get invite codes and bringing in more people who can get excited (and maybe also help) is obviously good.

      • The issue tracker and bug reports are all public so you can make suggestions, vote or comment on existing ones and perhaps more usefully see if you can work out how to reproduce reported bugs.

      • As of a bit over two months ago Tildes is open source. This means you can track down bugs from the issue tracker or even contribute code for new features.

      RFC:

      So are other people liking Tildes? What is it you like? Are you excited enough to want to help out?

      Also is there anything useful users can do I've missed? In these already mentioned areas what's actually most useful to do? Are some things of negative use? Could Deimos change his process to make more use of community help? Is there anything Deimos could delegate that people would be willing to volunteer on? Gitlab Walmart greeter would be cool but is anyone willing to do it?

      42 votes
    5. What makes an open collaboration project successful?

      For those unfamiliar an open collaboration is just a broader term than open source describing non software related projects like Wikipedia. I have been thinking a lot about how much potential...

      For those unfamiliar an open collaboration is just a broader term than open source describing non software related projects like Wikipedia.

      I have been thinking a lot about how much potential exists in open collaboration and somewhat confused we don't see more of it. I know that at least in open source software a significant portion of projects die or lose support. Why is this?

      5 votes
    6. Feedback and future development of Tildes Extended

      It's been a while since I've managed to follow the development of the Tildes community so I don't know how many invite waves we've had since then. For the uninitiated, back in the first 30 days (I...

      It's been a while since I've managed to follow the development of the Tildes community so I don't know how many invite waves we've had since then.

      For the uninitiated, back in the first 30 days (I think?) I started a plugin project for Chrome and Firefox that is meant to be the "reddit enhancement suite" light but for tildes. A sort of Tildes Companion (that would have been another good name, damn).

      Anyway, after an initial 2-3 weeks of furious development, some of it with the help of the good @Bauke, I've had to slow down quite a bit due to a big workload coming in at my company. After that I've had several family issues to deal with... to cut it short I neglected my beloved little code monster and today I saw not one, but two PM on tildes, asking me if I basically was alive and well :P

      So I thought that maybe it was the moment to ask for a feedback and, eventually, help.

      For reference, this is the github page.


      If you'd like to take part in the project you should know that:

      • It's written using jquery
        I thought of using other libraries or pure js but in the end it was the better compromise between spreaded knowledge and ease of use. Even if it's not the faster or lighter, taking up jquery is relatively easy compared to other libraries.
      • You have to have a minimum understanding of how plugins works for both chrome and firefox
        I started it after a long hiatus (I think 8 years) between this and the previous plugin I wrote, so if I could do it, you can as well :)
      • If you want to have access to the publishing / code review / merge features, you have to show me a decent understanding of code design
        I'm not particularly picky but I'd like to be sure that the plugins doesn't go live with lots of spaghetti code. There are already a couple of points in which I wanted to review and rewrite some code and I'd like to know that whoever will take responsability for the code quality, is at least concerned with quality as much as I am.

      To discuss further technical details please, come on slack (you don't have to even install it, you can use the web client).


      What I'd like to discuss here with you, is if in your opinion, there is still interest in this project or not. From the end-user point of view.

      To have a structured data of the feedback, please use this form. The same form will have a section in case you can/want to help.

      Thank you, anyway, for any input.

      43 votes
    7. What if app stores were federated?

      I've been thinking a lot lately about the future of software and where native apps and the web will reconcile and I had the idea that what if "the next OS" had a OSS federated app store that...

      I've been thinking a lot lately about the future of software and where native apps and the web will reconcile and I had the idea that what if "the next OS" had a OSS federated app store that people and organizations could host themselves, but the system still used the app store model that pull app/program listings from all the installations online? This could apply to mobile or desktop computing, or even any of the other platforms (see windows store system compatibility).

      11 votes
    8. The Tildes code is now open-sourced

      Disclaimer: this post/information will probably only be interesting to more technical people It's long overdue, but Tildes is now open-sourced: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes There's still a ton...

      Disclaimer: this post/information will probably only be interesting to more technical people

      It's long overdue, but Tildes is now open-sourced: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes

      There's still a ton to do in terms of writing more documentation, filling out the issue tracker with known issues/plans and so on, but it should be ready enough to get started.

      I'm planning to make a post on the Tildes blog tomorrow or Thursday announcing this more formally, but I'd like to keep it a bit quiet until then, in case there are any issues or major gaps in the docs discovered when some of you start looking at it. I'd especially appreciate it if any of you would like to try setting up a local development version and let me know how it goes, and if the instructions all make sense.

      There are two new pages on the docs site as part of this as well:

      • Development Setup - describes how to do the initial setup necessary to get a local development version of the site running
      • Development - a general page with information and instructions related to a lot of aspects of site development. It's very scattered right now and I intend to split it into multiple pages eventually, but that will require some more work on the blog to support being able to organize it well. There are still some definite gaps in here, but it should describe most of the major pieces.

      I'd appreciate any feedback about the documents, code, etc. As mentioned, I'd be especially grateful if some of you want to try setting up a local development version by following my instructions, and give feedback about if any parts of the process are unclear, incomplete, or otherwise need more work. Please feel free to ask any questions you have as well.

      235 votes
    9. Looking to chat? I've created an (unofficial) Tildes community Matrix room!

      #tildes:matrix.org So there are many, many Matrix clients but the most popular one seems to be Riot which is available on iOS, Android (F-Droid, Play Store), and as a web app which you can join by...

      #tildes:matrix.org

      So there are many, many Matrix clients but the most popular one seems to be Riot which is available on iOS, Android (F-Droid, Play Store), and as a web app which you can join by clicking the link above.

      It's similar to Discord in the features it offers, but being open source I thought it might be more in the spirit of Tildes than some of the proprietary alternatives.

      That being said I'll be the first to admit Riot is a bit rough around the edges and Matrix seems to be under both heavy load and development. If there's demand for it I should be able to get a dedicated server up since it's an optionally federated service.

      Oh, and as a bonus the Matrix chat links with the Tildes IRC channels (#tildes and ##tildes) on freenode, so there's that. (Thanks @tyil)

      Don't forget to visit @Kat's wonderful ~tech wiki for links to other options such as Discord and Telegram if them's more your fancy.

      Happy wordsing!

      23 votes