mint

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boobs

I'm not convinced that this needs to be a link?

Yea no

it doesnt

i wonder if

**markdown** formatting *works* no it doesnt thats sad

mint @mintexists10/17/2023, 4:24 PM

great osdev actually 🏳️‍⚧️@mothcompute

ba!@tob10/17/2023, 3:34 AM

I need to fuss for a moment about the impenetrable nature of github. I see REALLY promising tools and alternatives to things like YouTube and other bigger sites that are on monopolistic rampages BUT, to the layman that shit is a different language. I can work my way around a fair bit of technology, I'm not inept but I am aware that my depth of knowledge is still pretty surface level. So, when I open something that is a possible youtube alternative and see this:

and then the install instructions are like this:

Its no wonder why there isn't mass adoption for using alternatives.

I'm not saying this isn't impossible, I'm not saying its unlearnable, but as someone who is starting to look into alternatives for The Usual Suspects, it is discouraging. I know alternatives will also not have the inherent creature comforts that a lot of people are used to, but so much of the stuff that's on github feels out of reach or unobtainable cause I don't have something that can run a certain code or can't parse out which parts of code need to be edited to get something to function properly. I just dont know these things and finding people to ask feels equally impossible sometimes. Hell, even people who DO use github for stuff say it's whack how stuff is laid out sometimes.
Also, the one I used in particular, this isn't a jab specifically at them, it's just the site as a whole, I've run into so many instances of wanting to try something and being unable or incapable because I'm missing some fine print Somewhere that says I should be able to run this thing but for now it remains feeling like a 50ft wall when I have a 5ft ladder.

#github #github woes #barking #polyfil #please help me understand #why is everything on github Like This #The Cohost Global Feed

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in reply to @tob's post:

Kalli @Kalli10/17/2023, 3:49 AM

I SWEEEAAARRR it's at the point where i see github and i just click away. anything that's not an explicit "DOWNLOAD THIS. HERE'S A README.TXT" is just. impossible.

@ROU10/17/2023, 3:57 AM

i don't know why programmers are so oblivious to the fact that average users just want a binary. all anyone wants is a web page with a big obvious download button labeled with their OS, and it downloads an installer/portable executable they can Just Double Click And It Works. you can keep all the other stuff, it just shouldn't be the first thing people see.

Nire Bryce @NireBryce10/17/2023, 4:43 PM

because half this stuff has to run in containers unfortunately

sirocyl @sirocyl10/17/2023, 9:32 PM

but they're.... containers. why can't you download the container file, double click it, and it be running? why do I have to man docker, the UI should be self-demonstrating.

windows has a "service manager", some inscrutable system-administrator-side UX written for Microsoft Management Console, but ... it works? it has the information and the tool buttons needed to work with the things! it's ugly, definitely not "user" friendly, but it works.

Linux, on the other hand, expects you to know how to man systemctl and write a systemd unit file from scratch. Why?

Nobody's writing .reg files from scratch and merging their hives by hand. There's no C:\Windows\System32\registry.d\. You have a Registry Editor. We use tools, we're not mortaring the bricks with our fingers, we have a trowel. Not Linux, though. You stick your fingers in the cement, "as god intended" and you had better damn well like it

Nire Bryce @NireBryce10/17/2023, 11:19 PM

i'd love that, that's the dream we'd been sold, but were that easy it would have already happened. there's things working on it like runtipi and the other selfhosting... frameworks, but they've got their own faults.

I hope something better can exist.

multioculate @multioculate10/18/2023, 12:27 PM

As a professional who gets paid to touch that Windows service manager panel... It does not actually work, all the buttons and statuses are lies, and attempting to make software, even software written by large companies with the explicit goal of working as a service, run as a Windows service is virtually impossible to do well. Notably, the way it tracks process dependencies is not really sufficient to ensure everything starts up in the right order -- so you can have a webapp that starts before the DB, crashes, and then never recovers. As for regedit... from the perspective of trying to make reproducible machine configurations, regedit is sticking your fingers in the undocumented, constantly-changing, impossible-to-version cement. I can back up and restore a set of config files independent of the underlying OS; I really wish that was the case for the registry.

qim @queerinmech10/18/2023, 7:51 PM

it is possible, but it is not the industry standard

people are "used" to difficult setup and then consider that everyone else should have to do that setup too

Kai @kaiswerk10/17/2023, 5:09 AM

it really does work like a magnet pushing me away from whatever good is behind that installation

[deleted]10/17/2023, 6:02 AM

virtueisdead @virtueisdead10/19/2023, 2:24 AM

lol, yeah. if it doesnt say right in the readme.md a link to the website where they put binaries, or if there isnt anything in the releases section, then it probably wasnt intended to be used by anyone that doesnt have the technical expertise to build it from source in the first place

Nire Bryce @NireBryce10/17/2023, 4:43 PM

FWIW runtipi simplifies a lot of this, especially if you're running it on a local network.

it on its own may be annoying to set up, but after that each selfhosted thing it supports is installed via it's package manager, which does all the docker config for you.

but you're not technically supposed to be running an invidious instance as an end user, even tho it's possible, there's a list of already propped up instances

eevee @lexyeevee10/17/2023, 7:40 PM

tbh it's a website for programmers. if you're not a programmer and someone is directing you to github then probably they shouldn't be doing that, unless maybe they're linking to a "releases" page

but yeah also running websites is a huge fucking pain in the ass timesink, i don't even like doing it any more

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