Adding myself here: I'm happy to chat about #Linux and answer what I can or help find resources. I don't know a lot about the latest, fanciest KDE and Gnome desktops but maybe you don't want that anyway and want to run something like xfce or another lightweight desktop (and yeah, for better or worse, there are lots of options with this stuff). Or #BSD. OpenBSD has been the daily driver for years now. One starting point might be https://fedoraproject.org/spins/ to easily try different desktops...
Alas, I have to consider some other hardware that is more BSD friendly than what I currently have for my main laptop. Wifi worked great on NetBSD, whereas it was flaky on FreeBSD, but the audio input was the flaky one.
A ThinkPad, maybe? I'll gladly accept hardware recommendations for BSD-friendly models from at least a decade ago (read: cheap).
Current status: Deciding between Void and Alpine for the next episode of The Main Machine Trials®
It's alive! Though I had given up yesterday, after a few tries today I got NetBSD 10 running. Though booting is still a bit flaky and I am investigating freezes, I may resurrect this one after all. I could replace the Sony VAIO keyboard, but I just like this one's keys much better than the Sony's island keyboard.
A small update to the alternative #PC operating systems list beside #Linux and #BSD - If you want to try something #new and use either way and only #basic functions & programs on your #desktop, you might want to try these:
🧵 …although I tend to favour OpenBSD and Linux for personal reasons, I find this decision OK. Certain open source projects lack clear, reasoned positions and decisions.
»NetBSD’s New Policy – No Place for AI-Created Code:
NetBSD bans AI-generated code to preserve clear copyright and meet licensing goals.«
After a search in the NetBSD packages for lightweight web browsers, the winners are: vimb, dillo, luakit and netsurf.
Dillo's new release 3.1.0 still hasn't landed, so no HTTPS there. Luakit is very neat, extremely lightweight, minimal, has vim-like bindings and would be perfect if it weren't for the constant white flashing between each pageload when using a custom, darker CSS. NetSurf is also quite neat, with tab support for heavier sessions.
The winner for me is vimb, which although leaving tabs to the window manager, has vim-like bindings, is pretty minimal and does not cause flashing when switching between pages on a custom darker CSS setting.
Honor mention to Arctic Fox, a Pale Moon clone that hits peak nostalgia with the pre-omnibar Firefox look. No theming, not as lightweight, but going strong at 29.5k commits since 2018.
🤖 NetBSD’s New Policy: No Place for AI-Created Code
— @linuxiac
“New development policy: code generated by a large language model or similar technology (e.g. ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot) is presumed to be tainted (i.e. of unclear copyright, not fitting NetBSD’s licensing goals) and cannot be committed to NetBSD.”
25 years ago today, Google was founded.
On the same day, I wiped Windows 98 off my computer, believing that Debian Linux (which I had been using for a while but still kept Windows on another partition) could do everything I had been doing with Windows until then.
Since that day, many installations of Linux, *BSD, MacOS have graced my computers, but Windows has remained, on a few occasions, only an occasional (unwelcome) guest.
In the spirit of a typical support group phrase, I can joyfully say:
'Hello, I'm Stefano, and I haven't been using Windows as my primary operating system for 25 years.'
As a proud member of the open source community since 1995, as being part of the OSS revolution as a #RedHat, #Canonical and #SuSE employee, with regrets I have to admit @geerlingguy is not totally wrong:
Every time I review any #Linux hardware on the channel, I always get asked « where the affordable options are », so here are 2 #laptops from @slimbook, the « Elemental » line.
They start under 550€, or under 500€ if you don’t have to pay VAT, and they actually give you a really solid device for the cost:
Is it worth mentioning, in this context, Minifree as a supplier of linux laptops? They also sell *BSD laptops too. That's not even their USP, which is that they use (and indeed develop) libreboot - a FOSS BIOS for improved security.
Fever dream idea: #linux 's wide adaption was dependent on reliable web search: It's the fastest way of getting a working solution in an environment made up of disparate software, that's not developed and documented together for consistency. Does that mean #BSD s might become more popular as search becomes less reliable, and people have to use primary sources, like the docs more?
I need a decent VPS host that specialises in #BSD, specifically #OpenBSD based hosting. One that has a good track record for reliability, also good customer support, and general security practises.
I can google this, but I have a lot of BSD people following me, so I'm asking this here, because my followers will know better.
I'm moving all my self-hosted servers over to OpenBSD but some of it is intentionally outsourced, for a few reasons. If people can reply with suggestions that'd be super.
How can I be up-to-date with current developments of all #bsd without following their mailing lists? I'd love to know what they are cooking (got or graphical installer for example) but without following dev discussions, as those are too low-level for my needs.
🧑💻 NetBSD On The State & Future Of X.Org/X11
➥ @phoronix
「 The bad news is that to have applications running we require access to a larger open source ecosystem, and that ecosystem has a lot of churn and is easily distracted by shiny new squirrels. The process of upstreaming stuff to X.Org is an ongoing process, but it's likely we'll run into things that will never be suitable for upstream 」