I Gave Tech Bros the Finger

Random Fun
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I’ve gotten increasingly tired of Big Tech enshittifying their products, so I recently embarked on a mission to find alternatives. I had a free PC to use for evaluating and testing these alternatives, so it was without risk.

First, Windows is increasingly less of an operating system and more of an advertising and surveillance platform with forced updates, kludgy interfaces, and multiple telemetry streams back to the mother ship. Fortunately, there are free alternatives that aren’t polluted with adware and surveillance crap. I previewed several BSD and Linux distros by running them in VMware under Windows. I used to run FreeBSD on my servers, so I made that my starting point. FreeBSD installs without a graphical user interface, and requires the user to install one (KDE, Gnome) separately. This can be done either completely manually using the package manager to install all of the appropriate packages, or in a somewhat automated fashion using a script called desktop_installer. I chose the latter approach, but could never get it to complete successfully. I eventually gave up, not wanting to put anymore time into finding a solution–too bad, FreeBSD could probably attract more users if they had an installer that installs a GUI as the default desktop environment.

Next I tried several Linux distros, including Fedora, Arch, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Mint. All of these install a graphical desktop by default. I liked the UI of Mint (Cinnamon) best, preferring it over KDE and Gnome. My next step was to install Mint on a physical disk, and that went smoothly and I was running Mint natively on the machine. The installer does not require an online account of any kind (unlike Windows, which practically forces you to have a Microsoft account) and it doesn’t push additional cost services like the Windows installer does.

I did run into an issue with Mint, however. When the system was idle, it would hang after a random period of time, requiring a hard reset. I suspected the hangs were related to CPU power states, and tried changing several BIOS settings. The problem turned out to be caused by the first-generation Ryzen CPU in my system glitching when individual CPU cores came out of a low power state. Setting the “Global C-States” BIOS setting to “disabled” fixed the issue. For some reason, Windows is not susceptible to this issue because this machine ran for years with the default BIOS settings without hanging when idle. Unfortunately, average home users do not have the experience or knowledge to diagnose issues like this, so they’d be frustrated with Linux if their hardware experiences this, or similar errors.

Next up: Microsoft Office365. The only tool I really used in this suite was Word. I do so little stuff with Word these days that I didn’t mind nuking it. I now use LaTeX for creating documents, and as a bonus, the final results look so much better. I use spreadsheets so infrequently that Excel is not important to me–if I do need one, I can use the spreadsheet in LibreOffice.

When Google first came on the scene years ago, it had a clean interface, a revolutionary page ranking algorithm, and its results were clean and well-ordered. Now it’s a morass of ads and sponsored results that makes finding what you’re looking for a crap shoot. I looked at several Google alternatives to find something better, including Duck Duck Go, and eventually settled on kagi. Unlike Google, kagi is not free, but it does promise search results with no ads, no tracking, and no AI nonsense. Is it worth it? To me it is–I’d rather pay a moderate sum up front to get a clean search experience than wade through Google’s mess every time I search while providing Google with more information for them to add to my dossier.

I’d been using Chrome as my preferred browser for years, but recently it’s been enshittified too. My biggest complaint was Google’s neutering of ad blockers. As an ad sales driven company, of course they’re going to do whatever they can to defang ad blockers. I switched to Firefox, and since Mozilla is not a company that depends on ad revenue, ad blockers on their platform are actually useful. uBlock Origin works well in Firefox and I can now browse sites that were nearly unusable in Chrome due to the massive number of ads on every page. Do I feel bad about denying companies the revenue they get from ad views? Nope, I have no sympathy for them. I wouldn’t mind a few unobtrusive ads, but so many sites have invasive ads everywhere, and they use tracking to mine data and feed it to the two advertising colossi (Google and Meta).

Email was next. I’ve been a Gmail user for many years, initially switching to them when dealing with spam on my own postfix email server became almost a full time job. I’m sure Google is scanning all of my email, both incoming and outgoing, and using it to track everything I do. Fortunately, none of my email addresses end in @gmail.com, but use my own private domain, so moving everything to a different host wasn’t too difficult. I evaluated Proton and Fastmail, and eventually settled on Fastmail. Fastmail costs about the same as I was paying Google to host my email on Gmail, but now I’m no longer feeding Google’s insatiable appetite for information on me.

I’ve been running on Linux Mint for the last week and so far I haven’t really missed Windows. I can install updates when I want to rather than when Microsoft forces me to. Network traffic on the idle system is far less than what a typical Windows system does. Before wiping Windows and installing Mint, I ran Wireshark on the completely idle system and Windows was constantly sending data to various IP addresses that resolved to Microsoft telemetry servers. I have no idea what data it was sending because the data was encrypted. I did the same thing on Mint, and the outgoing network traffic on an idle system was almost nonexistent. On the freshly booted Windows system, with no applications running, the OS occupied 4.2GB, the Mint system with no applications running occupied 1.3GB.

Now I need to find an alternative for the cesspool that Reddit has become…

Fingers given:fu: :

:fu: Nadella (Microsoft) for destroying the usefulness of Windows over the years

:fu: Pichai (Google) for turning Google search into an ad and surveillance platform and for turning Chome into yet another ad and surveillance tool.

I’d like to give the finger to Zuckerborg and Muskrat too, but I’ve never used Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Twitter.

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Except for KDE, I concur. KDE has for a couple of decades now been my favourite and go-to GUI. I also like Mint Cinnamon, and I can live with it. Cinnamon is not as flexible in the configuration as KDE, but still good. For my use, the practical functionality of these two desktops are top notch. For historical reasons, my daily driver is Kubuntu (Ubuntu with KDE), running from an SSD I first installed in 2018, and have upgraded over the years, and even moved to another computer when the original one died. I’ve invested so much time and work into this setup that I don’t want to switch. At least not yet. But I do have a secondary computer with Mint Cinnamon that I use in my homelab setup.

One really nifty detail about the different versions of Mint is that the visual aspects — colour schemes, icons, window decorations, etc. — of the GUI is the same across Cinnamon, Mate, and Xfce. Although some of the included applications that are optimised for the different desktops differ between the versions, they have analogs with mostly the same functionality. In short, a well thought out design.

I’ve tried Fedora, but it’s just not for me, even though I use (and like) RHEL for work. I’ve just run into too many snags and details not to my liking on Fedora for me to really enjoy it. I can use it, but for private use I prefer Debian-derived distros. On the other hand, I have learned to enjoy and like the long-term stability of RHEL (and Rocky, Oracle Linux, Alma), so they are very good for systems that are just supposed to work over many years, with just the required updates. Such as my setup at work. They are much less of a moving target than Fedora, Ubuntu, and Mint. Perhaps the only other distro I can compare it with regarding stability is Debian.

As far as FreeBSD or NetBSD is concerned, I think it is a pity that they are not so easy to set up as a graphical workstation. Over the years, I have tested several of the BSDs in virtual machines somewhat semi-regularly to see if their usability had improved enough for me to use it as my primary desktop. But alas, the gap between them and Linux have only gotten bigger. The reality is that Linux is the new Unix. I would have liked to see some more variety and competition here.

As far as turning my back on the Tech Bros is concerned: I’m slowly moving to Proton mail, but that is a task that will take some time, as I don’t self-host. I’ve used Firefox with adblockers for many years now, and don’t look back to Chrome.

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I use FreeBSD on my file server as it has good support for ZFS. I’ve been running it for years and have never lost a file, even though I’ve had several hard disks fail.

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This is helpful as I am considering reacquainting myself with Linux and seeing if I can get away from MacOS and perhaps Apple hardware.

May I ask why you prefer Cinamon, or is it just personal subjective preference?

Also what tipped you toward FastMail vs ProtonMail? I’ve been using ProtonMail for a few years as my primary personal email and once I had it configured as I wished it seems to work well for me. And I like the inherent end-to-end encryption.

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Just subjective personal preference. KDE would be my second choice, followed by Xfce. I’ve never cared much for Gnome—it just rubs me the wrong way.

With regards to Proton versus Fastmail, I chose Fastmail because its setup is simpler. Proton has end-to-end encryption, but requires a component called Proton Bridge to decrypt email and present it like a local IMAP/SMTP server. I just don’t need the encryption because I’m careful to not include anything in email that’s sensitive (like SSNs, bank account numbers, etc).

One advantage of Proton: they’re headquartered in Switzerland, which has some pretty good privacy laws. Fastmail is headquartered in Australia.

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I use a Manjaro distro with Xfce as a daily driver.

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I forgot to mention that on Mint you can install other desktop environments easily.

To install Xfce: sudo apt install mint-meta-xfce

To install KDE Plasma: sudo apt install kde-full

To switch between them, log out, and then choose which one you want from the drop down on the login screen.

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It is strongly discouraged to do this, as you then duplicate certain desktop system application functionalities, for example file browser functionality. Also, user preferences can be a nightmare to handle when you use different settings apps that can create unforeseen and/or unpredictable effects/behaviour in the other DEs. With a plethora of apps that are registered as doing the same thing, choosing the correct one for that DE can become a nightmare, and seeds confusion. Been there, done that, strongly advices against doing it.

TL;DR: Do not install multiple DEs on a Linux computer. While it technically works, it sets up lots of booby traps for confusion and unpredictable behaviour. Do your research (e.g. in VMs), pick one, stick with it.

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Here is my summary of some popular desktop environments available on Linux:

KDE is by far the most configurable DE out there, and has lots of advanced, novel and interesting features. The configurability means you can make it look and behave exactly like you want it to. And that is the primary reason it is my first choice.

Cinnamon is configurable, but not to the extent of KDE. It is considered a traditional desktop, which means it will be familiar for most users, and easy to learn. While it may lack some of the bells and whistles of KDE, it is a solid desktop environment that is good for most normal use. Its origins is in Gnome 3, but Cinnamon is now its own thing. It is my #2 choice.

MATE: I’ve only really tried it on Linux Mint, and my conclusion is: meh. While it still works adequately, it is still built on Gnome 2, and I dislike Gnome.

Gnome: I only use it when I have to, which basically means the OS was not installed and configured by me; it is someone else’s computer set up as a default installation, with other people’s priorities. I only tolerate it when it is on someone else’s computer. And I agree with @SodaAnt here, it rubs me the wrong way. So I avoid it. If I had been superstitius or religious, I would stock up on garlic and crucifixes to keep near a computer with Gnome.

Xfce is a lightweight and snappy desktop environment. If you are used to maximalist DEs such as KDE, you might find its configurability and features somewhat lacking. This can also work in its favour, as it diverts the attention towards actually using the desktop, instead of spending lots of time configuring it. I know several Linux power users that use Xfce on powerful workstations and prefer it precisely for the above reasons.

LXQt is a another fast and lightweight DE, but this one is built on Qt. I’d put it more or less in the same category as Xfce, for much the same reasons.

As for Linux distros, the big divide is between distros using .rpm packages (RHEL+compatibles, Fedora, SuSe, …) and those using .deb packages (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, …). Both have their advantages, but I tend to gravitate towards .deb. If you want a rock solid no-nonsense OS for a production environment, go for RHEL (or Alma, Rocky, or OracleLinux) or Debian stable. For desktop use at home where you want the apps versions reasonably updated, go for Fedora (rpm-based) or one of the Debian derivatives (Mint, Ubuntu). Debian stable is, well, stable, but for pure desktop use it can seem somewhat outdated. Note that his does not detract from the use of Debian stable in a production environment. I have little experience with SuSe, so I cannot really comment on it.

There are other distros other than the rpm and deb-based ones. For example Arch. Arch is well known for being somewhat laborious and complicated to set up, and it has a near cult following. It is good for learning the nitty gritty details of the interiors of Linux. Its documentation database is awesome, and is much used also by those with other distros. But if all you want is to have a desktop computer that just works without major intervention and some elbow grease, Arch is not for you.

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I went to Linux Mint when Windows 7 went EOL. After 25 years supporting Windows for a living, the learning curve was steeper than expected. The majority of issues all seemed to center around hardware for me. I’m currently holding off on the latest Mint 22.3 upgrade, as a known issue is a complete embolism with my Jurassic nVidia card…

Aside from the learning curve in the command line structure, it was pretty seamless.

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Although Mint is derived from Ubuntu, they have their own release cycle. With Ubuntu, I always wait a few months with Ubuntu LTS upgrades, as there are always some gremlins to be weeded out with big updates. I might consider upgrading to Ubuntu 26.04 around the time 26.10 is about to be released. I do something similar with Mint.

Nvidia hardware has always been problematic. When I decide to get a new computer, I will try my best to avoid Nvidia, and go for AMD or even Intel. I’m just tired of manual interventions when the Nvidia drivers stumble and fall. For work, I have no choice, as some of the software I depend upon insist on having access to a GPU from Nvidia (not AI or neural net applications, just accelerated computations and rendering) :grimacing:

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This was an old GIS machine with an nVidia N2000 card. It worked fine and still does. It has grey hair and I would love to flush it. Currently, other expenses take precedence, but I have kept an eye on eBay in case my lottery ship comes in…

What was ironic, the mAudio LT1010 audio card worked like a champ through Envy24…better then through Windows 7, actually…

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Last I looked the distros that would boot directly on Mac hardware with an ARM CPU was kind of limited. I will have to see if that’s improved or if I can live with running Linux in a VM.

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Debian supports the following architectures:

  • 64-bit PC (amd64)
  • 64-bit ARM (AArch64)
  • Hard Float ABI ARM (armhf)
  • POWER Processors
  • RISC-V 64-bit little endian (riscv64)
  • IBM System z

(Debian -- Debian “trixie” Release Information)

If it is possible to install and run the distro on a Mac, the biggest obstacle would seem to be getting applications compiled for arm64. The ones accessible from the Debian repo represent no problem, but I can imagine there will be problems finding commercial software or non-FOSS software that the distributor have bothered compiling for arm64.

Edit: It also seems Ubuntu have an arm64 version. Probably also other distros. I have no insight into how hard or practical it is to install other OSes than MacOS on Mac hardware. Last time I did that was around two and a half decades ago, on a PowerPC Mac.

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You can install Linux on an Apple silicon Mac, but it’s still considered experimental and it’s flaky at this point. Use it at your own risk. A VM is your best bet until things settle down a bit. (I’m not sure why anyone would pay the Apple tax just to run Linux–just get a cheap PC to run it.)

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Tax is prepaid. I have a spare MacBook Air that could serve the purpose.

Particularly if I’m going to use a VM I might as well just run it on my existing hot spare laptop, which is at the moment an M5 Macbook Pro. Bought it at the start of the year, as a hedge against skyrocketing memory and SSD prices, don’t really “need” it actively so that’d be a good use of it.

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I haven’t seen any issues yet. I don’t care about duplication as, even with recent price increases, storage is dirt cheap. I haven’t seen any issues caused by configuration conflicts yet.

I’ll caveat that with the fact that I rarely do much configuration of a DE and I rarely use graphical utilities like file browsers. About the only config I do is to put a shortcut to the terminal program on the desktop somewhere so I can easily start terminals. I do almost all of my work in the CLI environment. I know all of the Unix commands by heart and type at 110 WPM, so that doesn’t slow me down. For most editing jobs, I’ll use vi for small files, emacs for larger ones, and only resort to something like VS Code when I need features that it provides.

I prefer apt for package management, so prefer distros that use .deb packages. I’ve never cared much for the .rpm ecosystem.

I’ve used so many different distros and DEs over the years and can’t even remember all of them. I used Motif long ago, and Enlightenment was my favorite DE for years (anyone remember that one?) As far distros go, I’ve used Slackware extensively as well as Gentoo. Also Solaris, although that’s not Linux (for the first 20 years of my career I had a Sun workstation on my desk).

Your advocacy of KDE has made me want to give it a go on native hardware (as opposed to a VM), so I’ll install Kubuntu on my spare machine in place of Mint and give it a go (this machine is not my daily driver, so I can afford to try out various options).

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In the era before modern DEs, I used the window managers mwm, twm, tvtwm, and fvwm. What I especially liked about tvtwm was that the virtual desktops were not discrete areas, but what was displayed on the screen was a viewport in to one large area, and you could pan the desktop around at will. But fvwm was my favourite, as it was quite easy to configure.

Cool. Hope you like it.

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I give tech brothers a big hug.

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I deal with computers in much the same way. The shell is my favourite tool, and I do most stuff from there. Exceptions are simple things like starting often used applications through clicky-clicky shortcuts on task manager bars or desktops, adjusting volume on headphones, etc. The file browser comes in handy when looking for stuff I know is there somewhere, but cannot remember the file name (if I do, a find in a shell is my preferred way), or if I need to get familiar with a directory tree someone else made.

I like to tinker with configs until it is according to my own preference. Things I must set up include:

  • I never use the caps lock key, so I remap it to be an extra control key. Much better when touch typing.
  • enable focus follows mouse, so that the window that accepts keyboard input is the one under the mouse pointer; this saves a lot of annoying and unnecessary mouse clicks (yes, I am aware of alt-tab for window switching — I use it sometimes, e.g. when switching back and forth between two windows, but otherwise not)
  • make sure the title bar of the active window has a different colour than the inactive windows
  • setting up different keymaps; I mostly use Norwegian layout for when I type only text, US layout when programming, and also Greek layout for easy access to Greek letters
  • setting up shortcuts and status applets in the task manager bar
  • other minor tweaks

The first three are a breeze in sane DEs in the Linux world, but are annoyingly difficult on Windows, where you have to do cryptic shit in the registry. Focus follows mouse breaks one of the central assumptions about the workings of MacOS GUI, so is not practical there. Which is one of the reasons I find dealing with MacOS annoying.