The “Activate Windows” watermark ported to Linux | Hacker News Reader

The “Activate Windows” watermark ported to Linux

github.com

157 pointsbotayhard30 comments

I love everything about this, especially this quote in the readme:

"Science isn't about WHY. It's about WHY NOT."

"Why is so much of our science dangerous? Why not marry safe science if you love it so much? In fact, why not invent a special safety door that won't hit you on the butt on the way out, because you are fired!"

Would that be pro gain of function? Not sure if I like it.

The full quote is from a video game mad scientist, so yes it would be pro gain of function. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OmH7tAJ0SfA

"Those of you who volunteered to be injected with praying mantis DNA, I've got some good news and some bad news. Bad news is we're postponing those tests indefinitely. Good news is we've got a much better test for you: fighting an army of mantis men. Pick up a rifle and follow the yellow line on the floor. You'll know when the test starts."

This looks nice, but would be better if it were fully functional. Maybe it could integrate with http://www.linuxgenuineadvantage.org/?

Linus Tech Tips needs this on every video involving Linux.

This is entirely great and especially appreciate the Cave Johnson quote for bonus points.

For those who are not clicking the Github link, here's a screenshot of what it looks like:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MrGlockenspiel/activate-li...

> MacOS (Horrific)

Why not make it cross platform so it runs on Windows too?

The immediately pragmatic answer is that you probably can, but only by using a rootless X11 server (plus WSL or cygwin). It would probably be better to make something that use the local native graphical toolkit, really.

Xwayland has a lot of bugs with transparent always-on-top windows.

You'll get weird stuff like the 'click''s that are supposed to go through it will in fact go through multiple windows down to the next xwayland app, bypassing whichever native gtk app they should have interacted with.

> Xwayland has a lot of bugs with transparent always-on-top windows.

Damnit, and here I was going to port Clippy to Linux. Found the sprite sheet and everything.

…actually, I was working on putting clippy in blender a long time ago but the way it does (did?) window animations meant the animations would only work while the mouse was actively over the subwindow and (IIRC) was moving.

That kind of stuff works fine in X.

It just doesn't work properly in Xwayland or native Wayland

> MacOS (Horrific)

What, and the rest isn't? :)

Also, it would be a bit excessive, but I bet you could use conky to do this, too.

this could be modified to start onboarding windows users to a linux install.

as we've recently seen, github and cloudflare workers can make the backend.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31387831

What desktop environment (/distro) is the sample screenshot from?

it's XFCE on Endavour OS https://endeavouros.com/

Can someone explain this to me? It looks like a desktop wallpaper with mountains and the words "Activate Linux".

It's a overlay with some text. It shows on the top of normal program instead of under.

Windows does this if your windows is not activated

Thank you for propagating innovation!

Lovable :) Linux needs safe mode and auto recovery environment too )

Can I use Linux in this unactivated state like Windows 10 allows me to do indefinitely?

Payment of undying loyalty to Linus Torvalds is due within 30 days. Though you can extend this up to 180 days if you're a business user with other undying loyalties at this time.

I stare at Activate Windows every day, along with my forced weather widget!

Can you install mini KMS on that machine?

Haha, I like this.

Funny I went to the `issues` page and someone is very upset about this:

https://github.com/MrGlockenspiel/activate-linux/issues/7

> Ok guys, hear me out bcuz i am TRIGGERED!!! i was just minding my business in my redhat based arch linux distro and all of a sudden: AXTIVATE LINUX>??? on my screen!? what the crap??? so I went online to figure out how to frickin activate my linux and I COULD NOT FIND???????? what the heck is "open-source"??? last time i checked the source engine by Valve(tm) IS ALREADY OPEN? so i had to go to Like page 52 on google.com and I find "purcahse linux product key" so i clicked. and then it said $200??? kind of expensive but linux is cool and good so I was like ok i will pay to activate. but they didnt accept google pay what the heckkkkkk!!!!!!!! so i had to go ask for my DADS credit card. he said no bcuz he is a stupid idiot so i had to steal it from him while he was wrestling with mom. and i put card number into the site so i could activate my linux and get rid of this stupid messgae on screen and everything was ok. i pressed buy and then.. NO PRODUCT KEY APPEAR?????????? now my linux is not activated and my dad hits me every night and day. fuk u mrcockenspiel i hate u so much!!!!!!!!!!1 FUCK YOU SCAMMAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the wrestling part gave it away tbh.

"redhat based arch linux distro" didn't?

no unfortunately :/

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