PewDiePie is now using GNU / Linux
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Blender Dumbass👁 17
https://mastodon.social/ : 👁 1
PewDiePie, once the king of YouTube, has now decided to stop shannigans and move to GNU / Linux operating system. And not simply to move to GNU / Linux, but stop using Photoshop and move to GNU Image Manipulation program, known as GIMP. Go back to using OBS. And even gave a rather okay-ish explanation of GNU / Linux and his reasons to move to it, to his 110 million followers, in a video he published titled: I installed Linux (so should you).
Of course even though it is great step in a right direction Pewd's move is not without its problems. Publishing news about this on Mastodon I received only one comment saying:
Fuck that guy.
Apparently people don't really like PewDiePie for some reason. Also the fact that from his 110 million subscribers only about 3 million saw the video, is not a good sign. His channel was declining ever since he lost the title of the biggest channel on YouTube. And then was declining even more rapidly since the birth of his son, which apparently took a lot of time away from Pewds. And away from making videos for his channel. Only the hard core PewDiePie fans stuck around. And from them not a lot, I would presume, would move to GNU / Linux with him.
I do believe it will impact the GNU / Linux fanbase a bit. People will be coming to Libre Software because of that. So in a way this is a good thing. But I would like to touch upon a few point in the video that made me personally cringe a bit. Which I don't blame on PewDiePie, since he probably doesn't know much about anything. And I remember being myself at a similar state of mind:
There was no mention of the GNU project or Richard Stallman. Pewds did mention Finnish developer Linus Torvalds. But as you know he only did the final part of the system, the kernel. While there was already 99% of the system ( including the bash terminal and most of the core software ) done before that. With a different kernel called "HURD" being in development. Torvalds simply beat HURD at development speed and became the kernel for the GNU system. PewDiePie attributed everything to Torvalds. Though correctly observing that it was simply a kernel.
PewDiePie praised Valves involvement in the GNU / Linux support for proprietary video games as some sort of final touch. Support for proprietary software ( or video games ) on a Free / Libre operating system is a strategical move which is good to get people over. But that is not the goal. The goal is to have a fully Libre experience. Including all software and all games being Libre. There was no mention of even SuperTuxKart in PewDiePie's video. Maybe he needs to do a video playing STK, or something like Dani's Race.
PewDiePie's fanbase is largely low compared to his highs back when he was the biggest YouTube channel. So the spread of the positive aspects of the message will be not as big as other people who reported on this might claim. Even with the number for subscribers still being over 100 million. Only about 3% of those people watched the video.
I like the fact that PewDiePie is spreading a good message here. I don't want to discourage it. Yet I feel that the message could be stronger. I really hope that he will not make a complete 180 in a few months. And still continue exploring the bright side. Perhaps we can hope to finally get some exposure to the Libre games from PewDiePie.
I guess I need to at least flatpak Dani's Race
Happy Hacking!!!
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