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by flukus 1455 days ago
It's a consequence of having our software run on other peoples computers. 20 years ago it wasn't really an option because most software was installed and pushing updates was hard, but now everything can be updated without the user even knowing. IME there's a lot of people on HN that will even defend this sort of A/B testing.

This is why I like debian, I never open an app to find out the entire UI is changed while I was asleep.

1 comments

If only it were that easy...

- Mandatory software updates can change UIs that run on """your""" machines.

- I still remember when I was running Debian Unstable, the day I ran a routine upgrade which replaced GNOME 2 with GNOME 3, I couldn't find my way around, and couldn't even easily revert because Linux distributions ship all their software in synchronized packages with interdependencies, and aren't built around picking and choosing older package versions (especially foundational packages).

You chose to run software with "unstable" in the name, when there is a free "stable" version you could use instead. You opted in to unexpected, disrupted changes
Chill, I was young and new to Linux at the time, and Stable had outdated versions of packages I wanted.