Today's article has us finding out which display-manager we're using.

It's hard to keep up with new dms or window managers, they pop up constantly, same with compositors etc.

As mentioned previously, you're doing a lot.

As someone who 'puts their hours in' with a few projects, I can relate to the last two paragraphs. Very few people are interested in getting their hands dirty.

As also mentioned previously, thanks! Your inxi gets used a lot in our forum.
 


The more inxi is used, the harder it seems to be to get people to actually contribute in any active way. I find this worrying to be honest. I'm trying to create more tools and release them as FOSS for backend stuff, but that's also work, but the idea is, lower the bar to entry to help, but it's a useless try on my part because I'm not getting any help except for excellent testers now and then, and a small group of people I keep in touch with via email who contribute a lot in an ongoing manner.

But this weird expectation that someone else will do all the work for them for free and that's how it is, naturally, seems to really reflect a generation who has grown up with big corporations handing them free stuff in exchange for their personal privacy and data, like google, facebook, etc. Or 'free' phone apps, that aren't free, they also sell your data or force ads on you. I am worried about this trend because if people take for granted the huge work that goes into maintaining any non trivial free software project over time, then at some point, fewer people will be willing to do it.
 
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Harald, I am hoping to have a little more spare time in the latter part of this year, and if that eventuates, I will contact you to see if there is anything I can do to help.

In the meantime I think inxi is great and will be trying pinxi soon (why do I keep thinking Pixie and Dixie with that pair?).

We appreciate your work, and it is a pleasure to have you within our ranks as a Member.

Chris
 
The more inxi is used, the harder it seems to be to get people to actually contribute in any active way.
What kind of work do you need help with other than testing, if people know what you need help with maybe some members from the forum here have the skills to help out?
 
Testing is a huge part. Learning how to test effectively, how to spot missing or wrong data, having multiple machines to test on, all helpful.

The bug in 3.3.17 for example happened because all my local systems, and all my remote systems, did not trigger that bug. But it did trigger for other people, including the packager, who tested it, luckily.

The most helpful long term is a somewhat committed level, where it's ongoing and I don't have to do anything. Big public tip of the hat to mr mazda for that type of long term behind the scenes interest and suggestions and ideas. When you look at -G today, you are looking in many ways at his ideas and suggestions being brought to life.

Extremely helpful things are generally software related, like a new wm, new desktop, how to get data off of it, version info, etc, compositors in wayland, new display managers, all that stuff. The sofftware stuff is the hardest because I can't ever guess at how version data works, or how to detect a compositor or window manager or desktop, it is always by a series of tests, and I have to know which test detects it.

Wayland compositors are a big weak spot, inxi can't get data from gnome or kde wayland at all yet, for example, no documentation, no data, nothing. new wayland compositors pop up constantly, I generally only learn about them at random, or by actually checking a 'best 40 compositors in linux for 2022' online list or something like that.

It basically comes down to stuff you care about, and find interesting, that's the stuff most likely to hold long term attention. For me, I have to force myself to care about whatever I'm working on this moment, and once it's done and stable, I forget all about it more or less, so that care is only short term.
 

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