Actually binaries can include non-executable files as well! Strictly speaking, a "binary" refers to pretty much any file that's not plain-text (so if you tried to open a binary in a text editor, you'd see gibberish).
Third concern: dependencies.
I installed a fairly small rust program recently (post-XZ drama), and was a bit concerned when it pulled in literally hundreds of crates as dependencies. And I wasn't planning on evaluating all of them to see if they were secure/trustworthy - who knows if one of them had a backdoor like XZ? Rust can claim to be as secure as Fort Xnox, but it means nothing if you have hundreds of randoms constantly going in and out of the building, and we don't know who's doing the auditing and holding them accountable.
Are there any things in Linux that need to be started over from scratch?
Yes, Linux itself! (ie the kernel). It would've been awesome if Linux were a microkernel, there's so many advantages to it like security, modularity and resilience.
I'm not aware of any distros that works better on Intel Macs - in general you may find one or two things not working (like WiFi or Bluetooth), that may take extra steps to resolve.
You can check general compatibility here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop/Apple
In saying that, if you like the macos aesthetic, you might be interested in elementary OS.
To add to what @bloodfart wrote, the history of TTYs (or virtual consoles) goes all the way back to the early days of computing and teletypewriter machines.
In the old days, computers were gigantic, super expensive, and operated in batch mode. Input was often provided through punched cards or magnetic tape, and output was printed on paper. As interactive computing developed, the old teletypewriters (aka TTYs) were repurposed from telecommunication, to serve as interactive terminals for computers. These devices allowed operators to type commands and receive immediate feedback from the computer.
With advancements in technology, physical teletypewriters were eventually replaced by electronic terminals - essentially keyboards and monitors connected to the mainframe. The term "TTY" persisted, however, now referring to these electronic terminals.
When Unix came out in the 70s, it adopted the TTY concept to manage multiple interactive user sessions simultaneously. As personal computing evolved, particularly with the introduction of Linux, the concept of virtual consoles (VCs) was introduced. These were software implementations that mimicked the behavior of physical terminals, allowing multiple user sessions to be managed via a single physical console. This was particularly useful in multi-user and server environments.
This is also where the term "terminal" or "console" originates from btw, because back in the day these were physical terminals/consoles, later they referred to the virtual consoles, and now they refer to a terminal app (technically called a "terminal emulator" - and now you know why they're called an "emulator").
With the advent of graphical interfaces, there was no longer a need for a TTY to switch user sessions, since you could do that via the display manager (logon screen). However, TTYs are still useful for offering a reliable fallback when the graphical environment fails, and also as a means to quickly switch between multiple user sessions, or for general troubleshooting. So if your system hangs or crashes for whatever reason - don't force a reset, instead try jumping into a different TTY. And if that fails, there's REISUB.
Are you sure? I just tested it on Fedora 39, using Chrome v123 (Flatpak) and Chromium v123 (repo package), both of them were running under XWayland.
The network transparency thing is no longer a limitation with Wayland btw, thanks to PipeWire and Waypipe.
That wasn't the point I was trying to make though. :)
Chrome(ium) still doesn't run natively under Wayland by default - you'll need to manually pass specific flags to the executable to tell it to use Wayland. See: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/chromium#Native_Wayland_support
Firefox also needed manual flags, but not anymore - Wayland support is enabled by default since version 121, released around three months ago. But some distros had enabled Wayland for Firefox much before that, Fedora being one of them.
In addition to the other replies, one of the main draws of Wayland is that it's much less succeptible to screen-tearing / jerky movements that you might sometimes experience on X11 - like when you're dragging around windows or doing something graphics/video heavy. Wayland just feels much smoother and responsive overall. Other draws include support for modern monitor/GPU features like variable refresh rates, HDR, mixed DPI scaling and so on. And there's plenty of stuff still in the works along those lines.
Security is another major draw. Under X11, any program can directly record what's on your screen, capture your clipboard contents, monitor and simulate keyboard input/output - without your permission or knowledge. That's considered a huge security risk in the modern climate. Wayland on the other hand employs something called "portals", that act as a middleman and allow the user to explicitly permit applications access to these things. Which has also been a sore point for many users and developers, because the old way of doing these things no longer works, and this broke a lot of apps and workflows. But many apps have since been updated, and many newer apps have been written to work in this new environment. So there's a bit of growing pains in this area.
In terms of major incompatibilities with Wayland - XFCE is still a work-in-progress but nearly there (should be ready maybe later this year), but some older DE/WMs may never get updated for Wayland (such as OpenBox and Fluxbox). Gnome and KDE work just fine though under Wayland. nVidia's proprietary drivers are still glitchy/incomplete under Wayland (but AMD and Intel work fine). Wine/Proton's Wayland support is a work-in-progress, but works fine under XWayland.
Speaking of which, "XWayland" is kinda like a compatibility layer which can run older applications written for X11. Basically it's an X11 server that runs inside Wayland, so you can still run your older apps. But there are still certain limitations, like if you've got a keyboard macro tool running under XWayland, it'll only work for other X11 apps and not the rest of your Wayland desktop. So ideally you'd want to use an app which has native Wayland support. And for some apps, you may need to pass on special flags to enable Wayland support (eg: Chrome/Chromium based browsers), otherwise it'll run under XWayland. So before you make the switch to Wayland, you'll need to be aware of these potential issues/limitations.
Thanks! Yep I mentioned you directly seeing as all the other other mods here are inactive. I'm on c/linux practically every day, so happy to manage the weekly stickies and help out with the moderation. :)
Incorrect. "Open Source" also means that you are free to modify and redistribute the software.
Not necessarily true - that right to modify/redistribute depends on the exact license being applied. For example, the Open Watcom Public License claims to be an "open source" license, but it actually doesn't allow making modifications. This is also why we specifically have the terms "free software" or "FOSS" which imply they you are indeed allowed to modify and redistribute.
I would recommend reading this: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html
This isn't necessarily true - most anti-cheat programs detect VMs, and depending on the game, some may prevent you from launching the game (eg games using Vanguard), others may flag you and cause you to get kicked out of the game, or even get you banned (Battleye is pretty notorious for this, from what I hear).
Now there are some tricks you can use, such as editing the XML for your VM to mimic your host machine's SMBIOS data / vendor strings etc, but it's a bit of work and can be a hit-or-miss.
Of course, the best option would be to not support games which use invasive anti-cheat in the first place. :)
And if you're on nVidia, it can be a bit of a pain to get it all going, since you need to patch your GPU's vBIOS. You can see how much work is involved in setting it all up over here: https://gitlab.com/Mageas/single-gup-passthrough - so not for the faint-hearted. :)
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