My experience with the Linux communities here has been the opposite. Very welcoming, and very helpful.

The other day my wife was talking about her new job and having to take notes. For the past 30 years I've been keeping notes in text, then markdown in vim, starting with personal scripts, then vimwiki. A coworker showed me Obsidian, which while not FLOSS, does use an open standard for all its files. It pretty much does what my setup does.

Then it dawned on me that my wife and other non-techies just use whatever their computer has on it by default (i.e. OneNote). She never thought to go out and look for better productivity software. The idea that there is tons of better apps out there doesn't register. She has a phone, knows about the app store and gets tons of stuff there but as for her desktop or laptop the idea of apps outside of MS Office and the video games she plays is lost on her.

You can't use it without the custom cursor? Doesn't seem important

an open standard for all it’s files

All that and you still can't use the right "its".

It's actually super important, the cursor in question is the one that you're supposed to get when you select "Freehand draw", without it you'd basically just have stock designs.

I wouldn't be surprised if gen alpha hasn't heard if it because schools primarily use Chromebooks and the only browser is chrome

They just want to get the job done. The fact that they considered a note-taking app at all isn't universally normal. To this day my wife sends me messages in signal as a post-it to remember things, she could have just sent it to herself, but she used to do the same in sms and just applied that forward after I convinced her security was a good step.

We want the best, the nicest, the most useful thing. We apply the same rigor most non-technies use when choosing a car.

They want to fill a need that, at worst, bothers them a little.

No. People who are 30+ maybe. But there are tons of people in GenZ (my generation) and Alpha that don't even know what folders or symlinks Edit: shortcuts are. And Firefox is a nieche browser since 10 years or so.

I think that if you are in this meme, you're either wrong and thinking too highly of yourself, or you need to touch grass there's no way a normal person actually acts that way

When did that change occur?

Everyone uses VLC still right? ... Right?

This is much more fun when using duckduckgo. "I duck the word and replace it" "I'll just duck the answer"

Edit: I can't type

The discussion is not improved by your contribution.

Suck my duck! quack!

I started replacing "to google sth." with " to search sth." since I use several search engines besides google and for some of them using the brand name is just ridiculous.

"Let me DuckDuckGo that real quick!" quack

name checks out

libreoffice is getting there too

every pc i've used has had libreoffice, even at my job even though they have licenses for almost everything from microsoft

My wife did the same on signal. When I showed her the "Note to self" feature she was amazed an. started using it. She use to get annoyed that we would text and her note would get lost but now it doesn't.

It isn't about finding the best, it is about finding better than the worst. My wife needs the features Obsidian has, she says she wished her notes would visually link together. What she doesn't know is that such apps exist.

She wishes she could sync files between her phone and computer and not have to go to a website to get them. syncthing does that.

Since their inception

Oh god that would trigger me so much XD

Lemme gpt it

The Fast-MBysoon Project

Fast-MBysoon (Microkernel-Based YAML Synchronisation Object Notifier) is an ultra-low-latency middleware layer designed for distributed industrial robotics.

In high-stakes environments—like automated assembly lines or autonomous warehouse swarms—different hardware modules need to share state updates without the overhead of a bloated OS. Fast-MBysoon treats system configurations and sensor states as YAML-defined Synchronization Objects.

By operating on a microkernel architecture, it ensures that when one robot arm's "Object" (e.g., current_velocity) changes, every other node in the cluster is notified with nanosecond precision, bypassing traditional networking stacks.

Core Architecture

The system relies on a "Pub-Sub" model where the microkernel acts as a high-speed traffic controller for YAML-serialized state blobs.

1. The Registry: A lightweight table in kernel space tracking which nodes care about which YAML keys.
2. The Sync-Object: A versioned memory segment representing the "Source of Truth."
3. The Notifier: A hardware-interrupt-driven signal that wakes up subscriber threads the moment a bit flips.

Abstract Pseudo-Code

The following represents the high-level logic of the Fast-MBysoon kernel loop and a typical client interaction.

1. The Microkernel Dispatcher

This runs in the privileged ring of the microkernel, managing memory gates.

# Kernel Space: The "MBysoon" Heartbeat
function KERNEL_SYNC_DISPATCHER():
    while true:
        # Wait for a hardware interrupt from a Node
        event = WAIT_FOR_INTERRUPT()
        
        if event.type == "OBJECT_UPDATE":
            # Identify the YAML object being changed
            target_obj = Registry.lookup(event.object_id)
            
            # Validate the new YAML schema against the blueprint
            if VALIDATE_SCHEMA(event.payload, target_obj.blueprint):
                # Atomic swap of the object in shared memory
                ATOMIC_COMMIT(target_obj.memory_address, event.payload)
                
                # Notify all subscribers via direct kernel signal
                for subscriber in target_obj.subscribers:
                    SIGNAL_THREAD(subscriber.thread_id, "STATE_CHANGED")

2. The Client-Side Implementation

This is how a robotic "Gripper" module would interact with the "Arm" module's state.

# User Space: Robotic Gripper Node
import MBysoon_Client as mb

def ON_ARM_MOVE(new_state_yaml):
    # Logic to adjust gripper pressure based on arm speed
    speed = new_state_yaml['velocity']['vector_sum']
    if speed > 5.0:
        ACTUATE_GRIP_STRENGTH("HIGH")

# Initialization
# 1. Map the remote "Arm_Status" object to local memory
arm_status = mb.subscribe("industrial_cluster/arm_01/status.yaml")

# 2. Assign the callback for notifications
arm_status.on_update(ON_ARM_MOVE)

# 3. Execution loop
while system_running:
    # The MBysoon kernel handles the heavy lifting
    # This thread sleeps until the Notifier wakes it up
    mb.AWAIT_NOTIFICATION()

Why "YAML"?

While binary formats are faster, Fast-MBysoon uses a pre-compiled "YAML-Binary" hybrid. This allows engineers to write human-readable configurations for complex robotic behaviors that are "baked" into the microkernel at boot time, combining developer-friendly syntax with machine-speed execution.

Hah no they don't. My partner doesn't even really know what a browser is, or where the distinction between phone/pc and 'the internet' lies. Sure she might have heard of the word 'firefox' but no way she can explain what it is or does.

Honestly OneNote is pretty good for the people who like it though. I personally really can't stand rich text editing, I really need a raw view. If I didn't have those reservations I'd probably like OneNote more.

All my work computers are provided by the companies I work for and per their rules I can only take and store notes using their approved software and on their servers which basically means I work on a locked down Microsoft ecosystem. Access to third party productivity software is simply not possible outside of certain role specific specialist software.

I would guess literally millions of employees have a similar setup so it's not that we are tech illiterate per say, but more accurately in the corporate world this option doesn't exist so there is no point trying.

Outside work my productivity tools consist of a Moleskine notebook with tasteful check paper.

Wait, who was making that claim?

syncthing + obsidian is a rockstar.

I have worked at places like that. The issue is real. But I have also asked for apps to be audited to get on the approved list. Again not always possible.

But I still think the general issue stands. There are a lot of people unaware of software. I even know developers who have never learned their tools and built muscle memory but instead just used whatever came with their computer because they aren't out there looking.

Yet you huge nerds tizz out over the most boring and trite software trivia that's obsolete within hours, but won't learn basic grammar that will serve you your entire life?

I'd like to think that improves things by a tiny amount.

The vast majority of people I work with in my organization have absolutely no idea what Firefox is or that there are other browsers. You, me, and everyone here is living in a bubble.

that's the true 'average' person. they don't know. they don't understand. they don't even want to know. they just use this magic thing that shows stuff from the internet. they don't even know what a bookmark is, they just 'google' for everything. even google, ffs.

Not too long ago, in the internet explorer era, Firefox had a huge market share. Something like 30%. Even if they didn't use it themselves, they probably knew someone that did.

They may not remember it, but at some point they knew.

They may say they don't know firefox, but if you ask them "do you remember there were some people that didn't use internet explorer before chrome?" They'll probably remember, even if they don't remember the name.

Putting folders and symlinks in the same category is wild. Most people I know (basically every non-elderly non-toddler person) knows what a folder is. Yet only some of the programmers I know know what a symlink is. Not even a chance for non-programers.

At most they'll know what a shortcut is. Which is not the same as a symlink.

It doesn't.

I feel obligated to mention Logseq here. It's similar to obsidian, but FLOSS (AGPL-v3).

Oh it did trigger me as well.

Didn't know how to react because I was so dumbfounded.

I didn't know that symbolic links were a thing until like 2 years into using Linux daily. I didn't know there was a difference between symlinks and shortcuts until I saw this comment!

To save others a trip to Wikipedia, both a symlink and a shortcut store a path to another file or directory. The biggest difference is that symlinks are resolved by your file system, whereas shortcuts are resolved by whatever program accesses them. So if your software doesn't know what a symlink is, that doesn't matter. It tries to access the symlink, and your file system says "oh hey they want that jpeg" and serves them that jpeg. Whereas if your software doesn't know what a shortcut is, it'll try to access the shortcut and be like "wtf this is just a file path, I was expecting a jpeg"

They can also store relative file paths, while shortcuts can only store absolute filepaths. So if your symlink references a file that's in the same directory, you can move that directory and the symlink still works. Can't do that with a shortcut.

Years ago I watched a friend type google.com into the search/address bar of chrome, click the link, then begin to search. Painful.

I guess I'm a programmer now

Googol is a hitten for great quantities, it worked great as a word, and it would be great if Google lost it as a trademark. However we have the force to seed a new word that has a similar image.

If the internet was an ocean of content, then we could say "let's ocean it". Ocean as a verb makes as much sense as the verb google.

The “who still uses Google?” crowd forgets most people just want their computer to work, not become a weekend side quest.

I found Logseq to be pretty confusing honestly. I ended up settling on Trilium.

I don't know you. My comment doesn't apply to you, sorry.

Knowing what a symlink is doesn't make you a programmer. It's just that I don't know any non-programmer that knows what it is.

That's one thing bots shares with redditors

I've tried it before and I like the concept but in my head I struggle using something not directly how it was intended. I want content rich notes, not just bullets. Yes logseq has support but it just feels wrong for some reason.

If it was around two jobs ago when I was just copying lots of meetings I would have been all over it.

Also I never was able to get Logseq and syncthing to work. I doesn't seem to let files be modified in the background and would lock up.

There are quite a lot of people in the workforce now who are so young they won't remember that!

I don't understand this, if it's installable on gentoo using the default method of building from source then it has to be open source, right?

Or have I misunderstood gentoo? I considered trying it once, but didn't fancy compiling everything on a potato.

Systemd+Linux

That's why I try to show people I know how to get FOSS alternatives for their everyday apps. It takes a bit of patience but trust me when I say this: Most people are more tech savvy than you think, they just don't wanna go through a judging community.