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Windows needs to stop showing tabloid news

(www.tomshardware.com)
1725 points taubek | 5 comments | 27 Mar 23 05:20 UTC | HN request time: 1.3s | source
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PrimeMcFly ◴[27 Mar 23 06:33 UTC] No.35323525[source]▶
I don't want anything, any type of news being pushed by my OS. It simply isn't it's job. Maybe, as an option or optional add-on, but not the way MS does it.

I use 10 now, as locked down and 'fixed' as I was able to make it (custom ISO via NTLite with a bunch of crap removed and some fixes steamrolled in), but really I look forward to ditching it altogether - which is a shame. For all the MS hate in the OSS community, I always thought Windows did a lot of stuff well (when it was good at least).

The telemetry, changing things for the sake of changing things and forced crap constantly being added is enough. I'm so in love with awesomewm at this point, and the fact that I can customize and program every part of my UI, allowing me to have something absolutely perfect and tailor made.

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arunsivadasan ◴[27 Mar 23 11:45 UTC] No.35325430[source]▶
Just checked out awesomewm. It looks really interesting. Thank you !
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Zurrrrr ◴[27 Mar 23 12:09 UTC] No.35325625[source]▶
You're welcome! It's really cool and IMO has a leg up on alternatives like i3 because the whole thing, every aspect is entirely programmable.

Enjoy :)

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1. chaorace ◴[27 Mar 23 13:22 UTC] No.35326366[source]▶
Counter-review: the level of control is unmatched, but it's a little too extreme, I feel. Even something as simple as a volume widget isn't included OoB. Yes, there are libraries of widgets out there, but not many -- and not always the best quality (memory leaks are unfortunately common, seems to be a screwy lua/GTK interaction).

More importantly: the core framework just outright omits many of the core features that I've come to expect in tiling WMs. There's no support for i3-style window stacks, for example; I've tried several community solutions, but they're all trapped on a too-high abstraction layer and inevitably end up fighting with the WM in ways that you simply never need to deal with in first-class implementations.

All in all, I'm planning on returning to i3wm. For me, it's a bigger struggle to try building up a usable environment from scratch than it is to start with a solid foundation and then replace the undesirable components (i3bar => polybar, bindsym => sxhkd). AwesomeWM is very fun to work with thanks to the great APIs and documentation, but I can only wholeheartedly recommend it if you need absolute and total power over the UI, since that's AwesomeWMs whole schtick.

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2. Zurrrrr ◴[27 Mar 23 13:35 UTC] No.35326511[source]▶
I've been using it for several years at this point and haven't encountered any memory leaks (it already uses so little).

As for widgets, I've had no trouble with that, there's quite a few fantastic collections and I've found everything I've needed.

Sure, stacks are not supported out of the box, but it is an easy thing to add if you want it. I think they are entirely consistent and bug free, as much as anything else - some specific apps might have an issue but you can also write a rule to deal with them as needed.

I'll take a completely customizable lightweight interface that I can tailor every aspect of every time, especially when it's so user friendly (for what it is).

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3. chaorace ◴[27 Mar 23 13:52 UTC] No.35326677[source]▶
> I've been using it for several years at this point and haven't encountered any memory leaks (it already uses so little).

It's the community widgets that tend to have memory leak problems, not the core package. As mentioned, this seems to be a quirk in how Lua and GTK interact (many community widgets use GTK).

> Sure, stacks are not supported out of the box, but it is an easy thing to add if you want it. I think they are entirely consistent and bug free, as much as anything else - some specific apps might have an issue but you can also write a rule to deal with them as needed.

They're not. I've used all of them. It's not an issue of rules, it's an issue of the core UI framework fighting against the hacked-on stacking implementation. There are design-time assumptions baked into the AwesomeWM layout engine that cannot be worked around using the API. You'll just have to take my word for it when I tell you that I've tried very hard and for a very long time.

> I'll take a completely customizable lightweight interface that I can tailor every aspect of every time, especially when it's so user friendly (for what it is).

I wouldn't really call AwesomeWM exceptionally user-friendly. The docs are good. The API is good. It's developer-friendly, certainly, but that's as far as the ease-of-use goes.

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4. Zurrrrr ◴[27 Mar 23 14:06 UTC] No.35326819{3}[source]▶
> It's the community widgets that tend to have memory leak problems, not the core package. As mentioned, this seems to be a quirk in how Lua and GTK interact (many community widgets use GTK).

What widgets are you referring to that you found to have leaks?

> You'll just have to take my word for it when I tell you that I've tried very hard and for a very long time.

It's just that it seems to contradict most of the other reports I've seen, but then I don't care about stacking myself, so ok.

> I wouldn't really call AwesomeWM exceptionally user-friendly. The docs are good. The API is good. It's developer-friendly, certainly, but that's as far as the ease-of-use goes.

I said it was user-friendly for what it is. There is nothing else really like it that allows that level of extensibility, and given how it abstracts so much complexity, I would say they did indeed do a good job of making it user friendly. Again though, that's keeping in mind what it is. It isn't trying to be i3/xfce/etc or as user-friendly as those.

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5. chaorace ◴[27 Mar 23 15:59 UTC] No.35328337{4}[source]▶
> What widgets are you referring to that you found to have leaks?

I'll cite myself here: https://github.com/streetturtle/awesome-wm-widgets/issues/11...

Here's another affected library [1]: https://github.com/deficient/volume-control

I've had similar issues wherever GTK interacts with awful.spawn. Basically: glib (GTK) + awful.spawn.easy_async + polling = extremely leak-prone. This is a very common pattern in community awesomewm widgets.

[1]: No bug under the main repo because they're considering it as a framework bug. See here for discussion: https://github.com/awesomeWM/awesome/issues/3584#issuecommen...