English spelling irregularity serves a functional role similar to Japanese kanji. It distinguishes homophones (e.g., night and knight) and evinces the shared meaning of words which have the same root with different pronunciations (e.g., sign and signature). Regularizing the spelling would make the language harder to read for those fluent in it, even for a hypothetical population who learned the reformed spelling from early childhood.
> Checkmating loses the game, as it is always the top engine move. Rather than aiming for checkmate, players seek to force their opponent to make a top engine move. If a player only has one move available, that move will always be the top engine move, which loses the game.
What's the rationale for this project? In other words, what makes it different than other embedded libc projects like Newlib or uClibc-ng or musl? Not seeing any documentation which answers this question.
The biggest thing for me is the meson build system. newlib uses autoconf-generated files checked into the build tree, with several different versions of autoconf used depending on directory. So you have to keep several versions of autoconf around if you want to add e.g. another source file without churning the generated files.
The GnuWin32 port of Make [1] is version 3.81. I've used it when I needed GNU Make on Windows. I know there are other ways to get newer versions of Make on Windows, but the GnuWin32 port is simple, standalone, and it still works despite its age...
No, the recent change [0] was to add non-free firmware to the official installer (instead of relegating it to a separate unofficial installer). GP, however, was talking about the apt repository: the non-free apt repository is disabled by default. This hasn't changed and is unlikely to ever change. The non-free apt repository be enabled via a trivial /etc/apt/sources.list edit.
So that means you can end up installing some non-free firmware, potentially buggy/broken, and get zero updates for it without manual intervention? I don't think I would have expected that. Is it such a leap to now also enable the non-free repo by default? Seems like an inconsistent position to an outsider (user).
> So that means you can end up installing some non-free firmware, potentially buggy/broken, and get zero updates for it without manual intervention?
The alternative is that they don't install any firmware, your installation is broken or crippled, on another computer you search desperately for the correct firmware, which when you find it (on some byzantine and bitrotted manufacturers' website) has some impenetrable process that only works on Windows to install, is often buggy and broken, and there's never been an official update. If you need to manually intervene you might as well reinstall the OS because you didn't take any notes on how you did it last time, the manufacturers website has disappeared, and you're downloading the updated driver that might fix the bug from all-the-drivers.disco or a Discord server run by H4r&dw3r3-wiz4r&d88 who was probably not born in 1988.
For me, there's a huge leap from installing drivers that you're necessarily going to install anyway (because you're installing on the box that has the hardware) to adding optional stuff in. As long as it doesn't install the drivers silently, but installs them loudly. I'd love to even see a EULA pop up that indemnifies Debian from problems stemming from the nonfree drivers, to provide the appropriate level of intimidation and aversion. I would also request exclamation points, possibly a bright red or yellow color, maybe a blink.
I wouldn't be entirely against exclamation points, bright red or yellow, and blinking, for enabling nonfree repos, but there isn't exactly a high bar to jump over currently. The bar seems exactly high enough to keep everybody from complaining for very long.
The alternative I was hoping for was a non-free (firmware only?) repo was enabled by default to support the non-free software that was installed by default.
The alternative to not install required non-free firmware is not an option we need to go back to.
It's a good idea to pick a relatively popular distro, since it will be easier to find answers to your questions and since having more users/developers tends to result in fewer bugs. Look at lists of popular distros, filter by your requirements and preferences, and try them out.
You said you wanted more up-to-date software. If you want to be on the bleeding edge, you might want to consider a rolling release distro, such as Arch or its derivatives. Arch is great if you want to hand-craft your installation starting from a bare-bones tty. If that's too much trouble, something like Manjaro or EndeavorOS will give you up-to-date packages but with an easier installer and more preinstalled packages.
If you don't want a rolling release, there are other distros which release more frequently than Debian stable. Ubuntu releases every six months (although anecdotally most users seem to stick with the LTS releases). Fedora releases every six months or so. openSUSE Leap releases every twelve months or so.
Per [0], as of June 2022, Wayland is at 24.6% versus X11 at 67.7%. It's not a random sample, but it suggests that Wayland is not yet what most people are using. Wayland's usage suddenly doubled in April 2022, presumably due to Ubuntu 22.04.
