I am in a bit of disbelief that it has been two decades since I went full time to Linux. It full disclosure, it was in late 2003 when I started using Linux as a daily driver but it was in 2004 when I stopped dual booting Linux and Windows. The “training wheels” were off and I was all in as a Linux user! This blathering is nothing more than looking back on my time with Linux, and fondly looking back at the tech, troubles and victories I had throughout the years with the machines that I
Starting Down the Path
In many ways, as I reflect back on those days, it was almost a magical time. Sure, it is probably all a part of my rose-colored glasses that I tend to wear when looking at the times long behind me but even as I look at what remaining hardware and software I have from that time of my life, I smile and I am very glad I made the decision to go down this less-traveled path for computing.
I knew about Linux before I started using it but was not willing to take the plunge for reasons I do not remember. It was about 1998 when I completely lost my enthusiasm for computers. The Amiga had all but fizzled out and I was working on earning a degree in industrial technology in drafting and design to get a job doing CAD (Computer Aided Design). Running Windows, at that time was a chore for me. The computer became nothing more than a utility to do “digital tasks.” It was there but I didn’t like it.
It was at my first corporate job in 2002 when I first experienced the wonderful world of Unix in the HP-RISC variety. It was extraordinary experience, CDE, although, not as cool as the Amiga Workbench was, had all the markings of something exciting and different. It was a different workflow than what Windows or MacOS had to offer and for me, this was far, far better. When I experienced this non-Windows desktop environment, I became intrigued by computers once again and a fellow coworker at that first corporate job told me, that I should try out Linux and that sent me down the path of figuring out what Linux I should use. I spent countless hours looking up where I should begin this journey. I do recall being highly annoyed that there was Linux and also GNU/Linux. I knew immediately that I didn’t want to mess around with this GNU/Linux so I went for a Linux distribution that didn’t have this strange name. Of course, today I know why GNU was slapped on the front end of Linux and my ignorant gut instinct was right. I went down the right path.
My First Stop
My very first dance with Linux was with Mandrake Linux on an AMD K6-2 Desktop. I can’t remember exactly how much memory it had but I do recall that it was pretty great for running Descent, Descent 2 and Descent Freespace on Windows 98 when I had it. It was on that machine that I first started down the path of Linux.
What was particularly exciting about this first run at Linux was that I was able to pick up a boxed copy of Linux-Mandrake 7.2 at a department store called Meijer for $29.99. It was everything I had hoped it would be. This was a boxed copy that had a nice thick manual and CDs to install. It felt complete, new and fresh. Far different than anything I had used up until that time. It felt complete, yet foreign. Everything was a bit different.
My first stumbling block was that for a desktop interface, I had TWO options for desktops with which to play: GNOME and KDE. I went back and forth with them trying to figure out what I liked better. I was really looking for CDE but that wasn’t an option on this version of Mandrake. I was also incredibly confused as to why there wasn’t a “Linux” Desktop, this idea of choice had me waffling back and forth between these similar yet quite different environments. Ultimately, I went with KDE because it felt the most complete and worked the best with the way I wanted to interact with my computer.
Unfortunately, I don’t have this computer anymore. I took it to an e-recycling center in 2012 when I had to leave country for a while for work. This first machine, opened my world, by just a tiny crack, to this whole new world of computing. I didn’t live on Linux with this machine but it may have been the biggest yet most subtle impact that turned my indifference to technology into a new fresh excitement. The upshot is, I still have this copy of Mandrake and I can revisit that experience once again at a time of my choosing.
First Laptop
The first laptop I installed Mandrake Linux on was a was a Sony Vaio with a Pentium 4, I purchased from Best Buy in late 2003. I don’t recall the exact model but it was purple in color with a kind of metallic sheen to it. It was my very first laptop ever and I thought it was fantastic. This was the machine that provided the first real meaningful experience. Although I did play around with and explore Linux with the AMD K6-2 machine this was the machine I wrapped my head around the various Linux concepts, truly struggling against and with the various differences and lack of hardware support that Linux had to offer. This was the machine I learned all kinds of “fun” things about Winmodems, or perhaps more accurately called Softmodems, which were incredibly frustrating with Linux due to the lack of support. I was amazed by the complexity and simple elegance Linux had to offer as a computer enthusiast. It was with this laptop that I learned when using Linux, the things that should be complex are quite simple and the things that you thought would be simple are quite complex. This was early days for getting power saving to work, sleep states and CPU throttling to work on a laptop. I often read in forums that one should not bother using Linux on a laptop as it would be a frustrating experience due to the varied configurations from machine to machine. Regardless, I stayed on the laptop-train for my primary work-horse computers for the next 16 years.
Unfortunately, this Sony laptop broke on me twice within a few months and I replaced this machine rather quickly but it stayed in service for someone else for several years afterward. Eventually, it was shelved as the battery became near useless. I think this machine left my stash of electronics sometime around my “great purge” of 2012.
Try as I might, I was unsuccessful in locating actual pictures of this machine but I did find something that looks quite familiar. I believe what I had was something in the range of a 15″ screen and judging by the optical media drive on it, I do believe this is at least in the ballpark.
Dell Inspiron 5100
The first Linux laptop I had that provided me years of great use was the Dell Inspiron 5100. This was the machine that I really dug into on learning Linux. I was deployed overseas when I purchased this machine for which I remember quite clearly came from the Dell Outlet. I don’t remember the time between clicking “buy” and receiving it, exactly but thankfully, I somehow had Mandrake Linux installation medium. I didn’t have any meaningful access to the internet outside of sending emails and short stints of time on AOL instant messenger but in the short stints of time, I did browse the Mandrake forum for some help. It was from the man pages and various bits of documentation bundled with the included software where I gained most of my knowledge about Linux. There was almost something magical about this time of my Linux learning because of how limited my resources were. It was also this time when I really became infatuated with various open source games including Tux Racer and Armagetron. Nobody really talks about these today but they really are jewels in the open source world.
When I purchased this machine, it had 256GB of RAM and a 40GB HDD which seems like nearly unlimited storage with more memory and computational power than I could ever effectively use. That Pentium 4 running at 2.8 GHz was such a powerful machine for the time. I later upgraded the RAM to 512 GB but left the storage unchanged.
I still have this machine, as of the time of writing, it has been taken out of the bin laptop storage, dusted off, BIOS upgraded, RAM maxed out to 2 GB and received an IDE SSD. Currently, it is running a 32-bit version of openSUSE Tumbleweed with Plasma as one of the Desktop Environments. Interestingly or not, it wasn’t my idea to dust this off but rather my oldest child that decided he wanted to see if he could use it an now plans to use this to write his papers on it in the school year. This Pentium 4 machine is really not too bad. My greatest concern for it is that the plastic is failing and numerous cracks have formed in it shell for which none are yet critical but I can’t imagine the hinges will hold out. I am wondering if it would be worth my time, at all, to make an attempt at repairing its ailing chassis but I doubt it would be the best use of my time. For now, it will enjoy it’s new lease in life, even if brief.
Dell Latitude D630
I purchased this machine in 2007 and used this as my primary machine for 12 years. This was such a great machine for the time. When it first arrived, brand new, out of the box. I had it configured with 2 GB of RAM, so four times my Dell Inspiron I had previously. I chose the machine with the best available resolution which was a 16:10, 1440×900 resolution. It came with an 80GB Hard Drive, and I selected the configuration with the Nvidia GPU as well. It received several updates over the years, new storage drives, a RAM upgrade to 8GB, and through its life the keyboard was replaced three times and the screen replaced once. It did receive a new fan at some point and an upgrade to the WiFi as well. The dock station options were also a fun thing about the Dell Latitude. I purchased a couple options and enjoyed the ease of docking and undocking the machine at the push of a very satisfying mechanical latching button. Although, it wasn’t perfect as I can recall some strange behavior with hot-removal from the dock. Mostly dealing with the touchpad behavior.
This computer was with me for most of my adventures across the world packed in my carry-on, flying to numerous countries and some of the greatest events of my life which were the birth of my three children. At each birth, I had the computer in the background playing music to keep the right atmosphere. It sat in the background adding a sense of calm serenity in what was a most life changing experience.
It was also on this machine that I started getting into documenting various aspects of my openSUSE / Linux journey and began this whole “CubicleNate.com” website. Since the D630 has a built in Smart Card reader, I became vary well acquainted with the operation of that with Linux and did a lot of writing pertaining to this.
Mandrake / Mandriva Linux was what ran on this for the first four years of its life and later openSUSE / openSUSE Leap. I was quite happy with the performance of everything I put on this machine. I had eyeballed the rolling distribution, Tumbleweed but the proprietary Nvidia drivers were somewhat problematic so that never stuck.
This computer was certainly faithful to me through the years and I was to it ensuring I kept it clean and replaced any parts that failed on it like fans and hinges. Although I do not use this as a primary system any longer and has been retired from “active service”. I did recently update to the latest openSUSE Tumbleweed with Plasma 6 and there appears to be a new lease of life for this plucky little machine. With some major improvements to the Nouveau drivers and how well Plasma 6.1.x seems to work with it. I can happily say that this machine is not too bad. I am strongly considering replacing the SSHD with an SSD to see if I can extract just a bit more performance out of it.
This computer, whether it continues to work or not will be something I keep with me, purely for nostalgic reasons. It was with me in a time of my life where I had the greatest number of changes and adventures, including the many ups and downs and even terrifying portions of my life. Dell built this machine exceedingly well to sustain harsh environments. I still love this little machine.
Dell Latitude E6440
After the 12 years of service by the Dell Latitude D630, it was getting tired and in need of replacement. I spent quite a lot of time determining the proper replacement for which I chose the Dell Latitude E6440. It was the same general footprint of the D630 but with more powerful, more modern interfaces like HDMI and USB-3. I had a Smart Card reader in this one and I also had the extended battery on this as well. The 1080p screen was also a welcome improvement over the D630.
I specifically wanted a machine without an Nvidia GPU so that I could go with Tumbleweed on it. Since it’s service life has been well documented on CubicleNate.com, the various upgrades I made for it are easily read through but in short, it went from having a hard drive to mSATA with Hard Drive and later mSATA with SDD which is its current configuration.
This machine came to me at new chapter of my life, another rather tumultuous one with some new struggles and I used this machine as a focus for my energy to create more, and do more with my Linux and tech hobbies. Although it didn’t have nearly as many adventures as it’s predecessor, it did make that trip across the big pond to Europe once. This computer hasn’t been fully retired. I still use it often, I enjoy typing on it and the battery life is good enough to get a lot done on a single charge. I had no intention of replacing this machine but due to a layoff in the global 2020 debacle, I was given a severance package and a part of that a new laptop with the same foot print, screen size and resolution that was only marginally faster but much lighter. Had I not received such a lighter, thinner replacement machine, I likely would have continued to use this machine maybe even now as my primary system… maybe.
Today, I still use this machine, not as much as my Framework but it is a great machine for me to grab and sit on the couch with when I have something to read, I need to write or just want to enjoy using the incredibly smooth and durable keyboard with which Dell adorned this machine. Truly, still a great computer.
HP EliteBook 840 G7
This machine was part of a severance package from an employer when I was let go during the craziness of 2020. At first, I didn’t really care when I got it. The Dell Latitude E6440 was working great for me and I had no reason to stop using it… until it came to battery life… and how refreshingly light this machine is in comparison to the Dells I have had. I could happily grab this machine and do my computing all day on it. I could easily go 7 to 9 hours initially when the battery was new and being that it was so light, I was pretty excited about using it. It received various upgrades over its rather abridged time but I found that the various flaws of this ultrabook sized laptop started to show through much quicker than I expected. One major flaw of this machine is the clearance between the screen and the touchpad buttons. As I used and transported this machine wear marks started to form in the screen where the buttons are it became more and more irritating to use it. The final straw for me was the fact that the keyboard went all wonky on me. The “T key” fell off, repairing it with a replacement key didn’t work out and various other keys stopped registering input. Since it was under warranty, I did call to getting a new keyboard. I was offered two options, one to do it myself or to send it away. Since I didn’t want to send it away, I received the keyboard but all the online instructions on repairing this machine seem to be void of a good video on digging through the underside of the machine to get to the keyboard. I have to muster up the motivation to do this one.
This machine will be sitting on a shelf until I decide I want to tackle replacing the keyboard. Of all the projects going on right now, this one is on the lower end of the priority scale. I like this machine, it has served me well but some of the design choices are problematic.
Commodore 64x (Impostor 64)
Building this machine was rather frustrating, which can be read about or watched from here. This has been my desktop work horse now for over two years and is ready to get a CPU upgrade, along with more RAM to bump it up to that 64GB of RAM mark and make it truly a “64”. This is my favorite desktop computer I have ever owned, which, admittedly, is a short list. I use this computer in my Lab and Studio where I have done most of my podcast and live stream activities. The keyboard on here is wonderful, and certainly one of the best I’ve used. Due to some design considerations, there are some compromises on the layout but overall, I do enjoy this very much.
I don’t currently see a future where this machine is outright replaced. I may end up replacing the main board in it at some point but the Ryzen 7 5700G that has been recently installed is more than satisfactory. I actually find this computer to be so good, I don’t see me needing to upgrade for quite some time. Perhaps someday, what I may find more compelling then what I have in here now would be to make for an allowance to accommodate a Framework 13 mainboard, maybe one of those higher end AMD boards or an Ultra 7 where I could also put in a battery. Why would I want a battery? Not for any good reason, really, just because.
This C64x might be the most fun computer I have owned but maybe not the most practical. Regardless, a great build experience and an awesome fantastic result. Now having 64GB of RAM in this machine truly makes it a “Commodore 64” even if it is a kind of impostor. That said, if you have a thing for this breadbin design, I highly recommend building one yourself.
One of the changes I made in setting this machine up was to keep the display arrangement simple with one large, ultrawide 1440p display. Overall, this was a great strategy until I decided that I needed just a little more display for OBS when I am streaming or recording, so I currently have two screens and it seems almost sufficient.
The rather simple layout was refreshing in comparison to my multi screen arrangements with my Latitude E6440 or the HP EliteBook as more screens do start to make the display system a bit squirrely.
Framework 13
Today, I believe I have found my forever laptop. Sure, nothing is forever but pretending like that could be the case this is my forever for now laptop; forever for the foreseeable future laptop. I love everything about it.
Since I became incredibly frustrated with the HP EliteBook, I decided to preorder the latest (at the time) Framework 13 with the i7-1360p mainboard. I have recently talked about how wonderful the Framework 13 is, and that it is the best laptop yet, which I still hold as true. What is more compelling about the Framework 13, besides it’s fantastic build quality, repairability and customization that you can do with it is what you can do with it. The Framework 13 is more than a laptop but a whole platform for all the nutty project ideas I have rolling around in my head. When I decide it is time to pop in a board that is more powerful than this 17-1360p, I am not throwing anything away. That older main board will do something else for me. I will make something out of it or maybe, instead, pass it on to my oldest son so that he gets an upgrade in his Framework 13.
What is so amazing about the Framework 13 is that what you do with it is limited by your imagination and technical wherewithal. Since all the CAD has been released for this machine, you can make whatever you want around it from cases, skins to expansion boards or even take the mainboard and stick it in something else like a Callisto 2, 3D printed housing. Really, anything you want, you are free to do. Truly, nothing, in my lifetime of owning computers even comes close to matching what Framework offers with their model 13. Every upgrade I perform on my computer means another silly project to build around the outgoing mainboard. Such incredible fun!
What is also amazing is how well this Framework 13 can take what I throw at it. I previously talked about making display layout as simple as possible with my C64x and went completely the opposite with this machine. I will say that this layout can get a little unstable but overall this is quite practical.
The key takeaway here is that this Framework 13 is a pretty powerful little machine that can take quite the beating before it thermally throttles itself. I am continually impressed with it and it is the perfect openSUSE Tumbleweed machine, the perfect flavor of Linux whose taste never gets old or boring.
openSUSE
The one thing I have really enjoyed about Linux has been interacting with great community members. This is especially true of openSUSE. This community has super intelligent and helpful people that have had incredible patience through a variety of challenges to guide me in understanding the software and learn more about the hardware I use and enjoy. Although I had no real issues with Mandrake / Mandriva over the time I used it, I have ultimately found the SUSE family of distributions to be more fitting. The administrative tooling with YaST is something that makes openSUSE truly stand out from all the other distributions.
https://cubiclenate.com/2021/08/30/top-11-reasons-yast-makes-opensuse-awesome/
The project itself awesome in that there are other technically impressive services that make openSUSE possible. Between the Open Build System, Kiwi and OpenQA, they have made a rolling release like Tumbleweed incredibly sustainable. In the last 7 years I have been using Tumbleweed as my daily driver operating system for not only my desktops and servers but also single board computers like Raspberry Pi and PinePhone. Tumbleweed still works great on that 32bit system that I can keep going for the time being which is absolutely a ton of fun. I really find openSUSE to be an incredibly fun Linux distribution. It greases the wheels of my life in all the right ways.
Over the years, I have seen various flareups of drama in the openSUSE community. There are some challenges with direction of the company and although I like the anarchic ways of governance, I think it has also held back the distribution somewhat. I love the meritocratic ways things get done. If you want to do something, you are free to do it and that sort of freedom is absolutely perfect. I basically prefer to stay as far away from the drama as possible because life is tooooooo short to get upset and be angry with fellow tech enthusiasts. I really prefer the “lets all get along and do great things” way of conducting this sort of tech business.
That said, I still love openSUSE and like any relationship you have with anyone or anything, sometimes, it takes some work to get through it. I believe that openSUSE will be fine, ultimately, and I hope that SUSE is successful too as I have chosen to implement some of their offerings into the corporate environment. I want all of Linux to be successful. Open source has been the only exciting thing about technology in the last two decades and I want to see it continue as such.
Also, I have written so much about openSUSE, in many ways, a branding change is going to be very annoying for me. I have wrapped a lot of my online identity into openSUSE so this will be a painful thing for me but like everything else, I’ll move on.
Gaming
I can’t say that I fall in line as a gamer but I can say that I do like games, some games, not all games. Gaming on Linux has greatly improved since I first started using it as my daily driving operating system. I did purchase two games in 2005: Tux Racer and Descent 3. I do wish that the boxes would have been a bit more robust but I did keep them even though they are in poor shape.
When Valve released Steam for Linux, that began the change of turning Linux from an obscurely difficult platform to do gaming into a platform that is quite good for doing modern, AAA gaming, assuming that there isn’t the irritating anti-cheat requirements keeping you from playing online with your friends.
Linux Gaming with Anti-Cheat | Work in Progress
Truthfully, this doesn’t affect me much as those games are typically not those that I play anyway but I do know for the younger folk, this is a “show-stopper”. I do hope that this situation improves and Linux can become the premier place to do your gaming but it seems like there is a lot of “two steps forward and three steps back.”
Ultimately, when it comes to gaming, today, Linux is basically perfect. Outside of some games that are just not available to run in Linux, basically, all the modern Nintendo games that are pretty dang cool, I can play whatever I want in Linux. Steam has made Linux a first-class gaming platform, making it easy for even the uninterested game studio to make a Linux port easily available by testing against Proton.
One of the neatest portable gaming machines I have used, the SteamDeck, which is a Linux-based device is now what I do most of my gaming upon. It is a perfect, take-anywhere machine for a little entertainment. My current employment doesn’t lend me to as much free time as I once had but when I do, this is my go to machine. Largely, it spends it time sitting in the living room on a dock, ready for the next opening to do some family game time but it still gets out and about, here and there.
I could go on here, but suffice to say, Linux gaming, pretty rad.
What I missed
I do feel like I missed out on some of the computing experience in the 1990s and early 2000s but I am reliving some of it now. The joy of figuring out how to run Doom and Descent on Linux was very enjoyable at the time but I did miss out on a lot of the DOS gaming in the 90s that I hear about on various retro-themed podcasts. Although no one talks about this game, one of the most enjoyable games I played on PC and on Linux with the help of Wine and also CrossOver Linux was “Warcraft II Tides of Darkness.” I have very fond memories of playing that on the Inspiron 5100.
Going from using Commodore 64 to Amiga and having a short time on Windows in the 98 era, I didn’t experience the early days of Linux. I never configured Xorg / Xfree86 to work with a CRT where a wrong number could destroy your monitor. I didn’t have many DOS games that I wanted to get working on Linux, really and my lack of interest in that time of Linux and DOS means that I missed out on many of the exciting developments of that era.
Thankfully, with the Internet, and YouTube, I can live some of this through the wonderful creations of independent creators on that and other platforms so I may not have grown up through it, I can still appreciate it.
Pain Points of Linux Today
Linux is not without its pain points. There are a few but really, much less than there have been and yet, at the same time maybe some new ones that matter more to others than it does to me.
The first and maybe most painful issue of Linux in the 2023 to 2024 time-frame is the Wayland display server transition. Essentially, this is the engine that drives the content you see on the screen. For decades, X11 has been this engine that brought us the graphics we enjoy but at every technological advancement, a new patch or bandage was put on X11 to get it to function correctly. If you ran a higher resolution screen, greater than 1080p, screen tearing would be noticeable because the path the graphical information would get to the screen was encumbered with various legacy inhibitors. There was also an inherent lack of security of the X display system but everything was built to work with this and around the issues. Essentially, X11 is a mess of wires that noone wants to continue to maintain so a fresh start was needed.
That fresh start is Wayland which should be more efficient and ultimately have the flexibility and “legs” to take it into the future for man years. Making the transition has been painful but the majority of that pain looks to be in the rear view mirror at this point. At the worst, I’ll get a little flickering now and again along with the inability to share screens or application windows because something in PipeWire has gone on vacation until I decide to restart the entire graphical interface session. Maybe this has been worked out but I have had issues within the last month (of writing this article).
Linux still lacks 3rd party software support. There are a number of professional, proprietary applications that are just better than the open source alternatives or they are specific to some particular hardware. If the company decided to support Flatpak, Snaps and even AppImage for software distribution, that would likely solve or at least mitigate much their distribution issue. Supporting whiny users is probably the other aspect that is keeping them from the move too.
The biggest and most significant pain point is the lack of a proper Microsoft Office Suite that is fully functional. Sure, you can use CrossOver Linux to run Office 365 but there is no integration for the collaborative aspects tied in with OneDrive and that is one of the greatest aspects of O365 in the business and collaborative spaces of today’s office life. If this one area was solved… something that, essentially, I have been asking for in Linux for 20 years was solved, this would be the perfect business platform.
Linux for New Users
I think about this a lot. There was a time that I felt that anyone can easily move to Linux and even openSUSE but as computers tend to greater complexity, I don’t know where I stand here anymore. If someone wants a computer that is easy to use and inexpensive, I say, go with a Chromebook. Sure, you basically have no privacy but it is easy and your data is easily transported from there.
If I am setting up a machine for someone else, I am highly likely to give them Ubuntu proper or Linux Mint. It’s nothing against openSUSE Tumbleweed or Leap, it is just that Tumbleweed and Leap aren’t really products but rather projects, more like a kit of tools to mold into various forms. I could set up openSUSE for someone else, and have done so but I just don’t know that it is best suited for new users. Truthfully, Ubuntu and Linux Mint have their own set of annoyances for this purpose too, which is why they are not my daily driving machine.
I don’t actually think there is such a thing as targeting new users to Linux. Someone that wants to come to Linux is because the position they are in with their tech is so uncomfortable, they are willing to try out a new set of discomforts. Most people just want to use a computer to do specific tasks. The mobile phone has largely taken up recreational computer use so really Linux distributions should really target niche industries or interests to be relevant to the future like embroidery, music or even…
Manufacturing
Once such industry that Linux should be targeting is manufacturing. I am hoping to see greater emphasis on open source / Linux in the manufacturing spaces. There is already a lot of it but I find that there just isn’t enough of it. Everything from CNC machine to PLCs can be done with open source tools but far too often it appears that some manufacturers turn their nose up towards supporting open source environments (ahem, Rockwell). Maybe in the future… or maybe, what has to happen is an open source first company is going to have to compete against the likes of these old, slow and somewhat obtuse, beastly companies.
I see a lot of opportunity for a small, upstart company getting into this. The tech is there, the software is mostly there, some of the additional tooling needs refinement but once it gets there, it will be absolutely fantastic. I should also point out that manufacturing is a wide net of ideas. Everything from 3D design to 3D printing, embroidery, robotics and circuit design. Most of this is right there, it is just a matter of closing the knowledge gap and making an easy on-ramp to get going. The licensing model of opensource is very appealing.
I do plan to do more in this area but time is the constraint that restricts my rate of learning and doing more here. This is an area that I really believe that Linux can excel like nothing else due to the fundamental flexibility of its design.
Looking in the Future of Computing
It was 10 to 15 years ago that 3D TV didn’t become a lasting thing. I think VR or Virtual Reality is getting increasingly popular but I just don’t have a lot of confidence that it is going to ever be all that huge. Wearing a thing on your face is just not for everybody. AR or Augmented Reality has its uses for sure. Google Glass from times past and now Apple Vision Pro is in the news headlines but this is hardware that is not for the masses and I seriously doubt that they will stick around. They also look completely ridiculous. I don’t know that any of these will stick around, perhaps they are fads or just ahead of their time. I just hope that the open source community is able to do something with it to make sure that none of these technologies are walled of to specific gardens. Walled technology is terrible technology.
Artificial Intelligence is compelling technology but I do worry that it will make a lot of people a lot lazier. Like every other technology or “power” it has the ability to be used for good or for bad. Like any great power comes great responsibility and no matter what the future holds for Linux and tech, we have to be responsible and take ownership of it and our choices surrounding it. It’s too easy to take the lazy approach to too many things. Whatever the future holds for Linux and open source computing, we have to be sure that we make decisions that are good and not that are necessarily easy or convenient. Getting lazy and complacent with any of it will spell it’s doom. Remember, we are but one generation away from the destruction and collapse of all that has been built.
I see Linux and open source is the last bastion for privacy and truly owning your technology. There is such an incredible attack against owing hardware and software that I find myself getting incredibly fatigued by the constant picking at my pockets through services and subscriptions. It’s just not sustainable. Sort of like growing your own garden and having chickens to be more self-sufficient Linux and open source is like that digital homesteading. Sure, it may be more work, but I see the value in gaining new skills and abilities and taking responsibility of my technology.
Final Thoughts
My Linux and open source journey has been a fun one. It has allowed me to make my computer my own and enjoy the hardware that I own. By using Linux, I am constantly learning and growing in understanding the tech I use. It gives me a sense of self-empowerment and connections with people across the world with a shared idea of making and sharing everything from applications, scripts, artwork or documentation. Rather than have computers as a kind of “black box” that are a mystery of its inner workings, it provides you the freedom to shape your digital future to the way that suits you best.
As a part of the open source community, I know it is my responsibility to do an be what I want to see in the world. Kind consideration of others and helpful information will keep all that is good about technology growing and ultimately the standard going forward. It is key that we do not become complacent or entitled about what is provided for free. Know that it is out of the generosity of others that we have all this software freedom. Taking the time to think about the 2nd and 3rd order affects of our action online, behind our keyboards is also absolutely necessary to prevent toxicity from permeating through these projects and communities too. We must always be awesome to one another, use kindness and understand that we are a collection of individuals with varying ideas and thoughts about how this exciting technological universe should work together.
It is also vital to remember that none of this matters without taking into consideration the human experience. Without humans, nothing we do has any value, so be a good human and a good technologist. Be the kind of human that you want to see others be in the world.
References
Dell Latitude D630
Dell Latitude E6440
HP EliteBook 840 G7
C64x – Commodore 64 Impostor
Framework 13
Building a New Retro Styled Computer
https://cubiclenate.com/2021/08/30/top-11-reasons-yast-makes-opensuse-awesome/
Descent 3 | Freed to Open Source
https://get.opensuse.org
PipeWire Audio Server on openSUSE Tumbleweed
SteamDeck
https://www.openpa.net/systems/hp-visualize_c200_c240_c360.html