A default linux install is incredibly silent on the network. You might be seeing some mDNS stuff, gnome/firefox may do some requests to detect captive portals, but overall the amount of network traffic is pretty small and manageable.
It's important to note that, generally speaking, Linux software does not come with default-enabled telemetry, and for those that do, distros like Debian will routinely patch out phoning home and telemetry from the software they package.
> That is only because there is barely any open source software for Linux that is backed by cloud services.
Some of us would call this a feature. I am quite happy to have control over my computer and the data on it without having to trust third party cloud services.
Good, Linux will be perfect for you. The vast majority of people want/need a bit more than that. Most consumers have come to expect a certain baseline such as:
- Cloud Drive
- Up to date Weather/News
- Malware checks
- System update checks
- Push Notifications
and more.
Before you say "I don't care about News", sure but lots of people do and everyone has a different subset of the network-traffic-causing features. Yes, this means many things are "on by default" but, again, that's what the average consumer wants. HN is a completely different crowd with, sometimes, different wants/needs as compared to the average user.
Sure some people want the news, but I find it kind of absurd that could justify a computer phoning home regularly. Making an API call when the user opens a news app is more than sufficient and quick enough to not notice.
"What about the news widget?" I find it difficult to believe the average user even remembers the news widget exists in Mac OS since it's hidden away in a non-obvious panel.
The most compelling cases for phoning home are OS updates and Drive like services, but at the end of the day this should all be easy to disable should the user want to.
> HN is a completely different crowd
Yes, HN is filled with the very worst kind of techbros who regularly defend bad practices under the guise of saving the average consumer from themselves.
VSCode is particularly chatty on Linux. You can use OpenSnitch to block those connections. I believe a lot of it is around extensions and the extensions market place. IMO, that's not the type of thing that requires constant background connections, and I could actually see that being a kind of vulnerability.
It's important to note that, generally speaking, Linux software does not come with default-enabled telemetry, and for those that do, distros like Debian will routinely patch out phoning home and telemetry from the software they package.