Why GhostBSD?

Posted on by Robin

I’ve written previously here about the ethical reasons for my choices in even free and open-source software (FOSS). Ethics remains chief among the reasons I switched from Linux to a FreeBSD derivative called GhostBSD. But there are other reasons that apply even to a “casual desktop user” who really doesn’t care to “learn UNIX” or get really technical about it.

It’s EASY! Write the free bootable image to a USB stick, boot from the USB to a desktop, explore, play, and if you like it, install graphically just like many Linux OSes.
It’s point-and-click simple on a desktop. The default desktop is MATE, a fork of the wonderful Gnome2 desktop. But I chose the community Xfce desktop download.
It’s ultra-super-mega STABLE. No sudden, huge changes every few months or years that force me to “start all over again” with a completely unfamiliar change in design. It’s integrated and written as a system, not just a kernel with abuncha third-party apps tied on.

That last point is a big deal for me, because changes that happen in Linux almost always happen because some Big Shot at the top of the food chain imposes them. It’s rarely a feature that users requested, and have the choice to accept or reject. The BSDs are community-driven and the difference is important. For example, systemd. It’s a hungry, memory-eating cancer that controls every process in the operating system. I don’t care if the Big Shots that impose it think it’s an improvement (which is debateable), it’s about my freedom to opt out if I want to. Take Mozilla Firefox as another example. Mozilla is a “woke” advertising company now, so they’ve “adapted” their web browser to make it more profitable for them – especially because 80% of their income is from Google and they’re about to lose that income as a result of a court case. Take the Gnome project for yet another example: Big, sudden, huge changes that make using the desktop look like using a “smart” phone instead of a desktop. Because the Big Shots wanted it.

A big contributor to the GhostBSD project, who goes by “Vimanuelt” in the Forums, created this graphical comparison between GhostBSD, Microsoft Windows, and Linux Mint:

A couple of things to explain here: MATE is the “flagship” desktop for GhostBSD, but a community Xfce iso is available to download and is well-supported.
The “init system” is the big deal I discussed above (systemd in Linux). Systemd is more than just an init system, the others do only what they’re supposed to.
The default file system nobody pays much attention to, but the one in GhostBSD (ZFS) is far and away the most secure and most free of errors.

ETHICS is what brought me here from Linux. Big corporate dollars buy influence and compromise freedom, choice, quality, and stability. “Woke” politics turns the community against itself. Neither of these are factors in FreeBSD and GhostBSD in any way. But ethics is only one of the things in GhostBSD that keeps me here.

Why Xubuntu – Another Reason That Might Surprise You

Posted on by Robin

I have written about a lot of Linux distros, and they’re all great in their own way and for a whole bunch of varied reasons. Sometimes I would try one out just to try something new. More often I would “distro hop” (change my Linux operating system from one distribution to a different one) because of other Linux users (hereafter “‘Nixers”) reviews and opinions. Sometimes I hopped to get away from systemd, which other ‘Nixers have written horrible stuff about, like “they’re watching, they’re spying, they’re gathering info, and systemd will eventually become Skynet and wipe out humanity!” I’m already scared of technology by nature, but all the fuss over systemd (used in most Linux distros now by people a lot smarter than I kinda freaked me out and I binged on distros that aligned against the coming takeover of human society by the Robotic Overlords.

I have already described why I love this distro, Xubuntu. But in this post I want to go beyond the user experience, and explore another compelling reason that I have settled on Xubuntu and expect to stick with it.

Sometimes I read blogs from other ‘Nixers who railed against Linux distributions made by corporations hoping to profit from free and open-source software (FOSS). How dare they! Profit is evil! The pursuit of money leads to all kinds of evil, exploitation, and ecological disaster! Red Hat, IBM, Oracle, and Canonical among others, all create and give away great Linux operating systems for desktops and servers. There’s nothing in the GNU license, under which Linux is offered, that forbids anyone from copying, modifying, selling, and mixing up Linux any way they please. Yet many ‘Nixers seem to be awash in anti-corporate and anti-capitalist sentiment. They insist that any decent Linux OS must be created and maintained by volunteers supported by donations from users, period. Yet look at what many of these volunteers supported by donations are building on: Corporate Linux! How many Ubuntu-based spinoffs are there, all asking for donations to “improve” Ubuntu with some unique software and shiny wallpaper? How many from Fedora, same thing? It seems so hypocritical. Using Ubuntu as a base and relying on Ubuntu’s software repositories, these spin-offs claim some higher morality? Pfffft. Use Debian as a base, then. Use Arch as a base, or Slackware or any other “non-corporate” distro to improve upon and release as a “new” distro (or “distrolet,” as I call many of them).

Now consider why Ubuntu is far and away the most popular “base to build a new distro on.” There’s always Debian, from which Ubuntu is based, and it’s not an evil profit-seeking corporation. But noooooo, they build their distro on Ubuntu. Why? Because Ubuntu has vastly improved upon Debian, from the easiest installation software ever devised to whatever “non-free blobs” they have added to make Ubuntu “just work” on a huge variety of hardware. The “evil profit-seeking corporation” that developed and maintains Ubuntu has done a heckuvalot to improve on Debian, and it’s so very much easier to build a new distro on than Debian is.

So: Why Xubuntu instead of Debian, Slackware, Arch, or Mandriva? Because of the amazing work and innovations of the corporation behind it, for one thing. Also because it is officially supported by that corporation, yet community-developed at the same time. It’s not going to disappear when it’s “lead developer” gets sick, dies in a car crash, or has a stroke and can’t work anymore (like almost every other non-corporate Linux distro). And because it is built from Debian, great grand daddy of distros, which is also backed by a large community and not just one guy or one small group.

The Lead developer of Xubuntu at present is also a developer of the wonderful Xfce desktop! Both projects benefit from sharing developers. Under the hood (or bonnet, for you chaps on the other side of the pond), it’s Ubuntu. But only minimally so. Updates are far less frequent on Xubu than on it’s flagship Gnome-desktop counterpart, and updates don’t seem to break things on Xubu. I’m using a well-broken in Long Term Support release of Xubu, so it’s far less prone to having an update break anything.

So if you’re a ‘Nixer because you’re an anti-capitalist left-leaning FOSS zealot, you’ll hate this post, and you might hate me for writing it. But if you’re a ‘Nixer because the locked single-vendor system of Microsoft or Apple has let you down, try Xubuntu.

On One-Man Linux Distros, Stability, Simplicity

Posted on by Robin

It kinda makes you wonder, when you think about the many super-cool Linux OSes out there that are supported by just one person, maybe one or two others helping. Recently the main guy behind the wonderful (and systemd-free) PCLinuxOS announced that he needs to step down for health reasons. Not a surprise, he’s been having health issues lately and everyone knew and had time to prepare. PCLinuxOS will very probably continue it’s awesome run for many years after Texstar, the lead developer, passes on. That’s because the distro has an awesome, large, and loyal community that will no doubt keep PCLOS going.

That may not be the case for one-man distros like Linux Lite, though, if anything happens to Jerry, the lead (and only?) developer. Slackware, God bless it, is the oldest surviving Linux distro. But it’s still basically a one-man show, and struggling financially, and losing popularity to “the big guys” with huge corporations behind them (SUSE, Ubuntu, Fedora/RedHat/CentOS). Maybe the best support for a Linux distro is actually one of those community-based distros. I might count PCLinuxOS amongst them because of the very substantial community around it. I doubt that the same is true for Linux Mint, and smaller distros like Bodhi, Salix, and Linux Lite.

Some real community-built and community-maintained gems can be found in official spin-offs of the big corporate distros. My old favorite, which I will remain a rabid fanboy forever – Xubuntu – is such a distro. Probably the same is true of Lubuntu and Kubuntu as well. Little known but truly community-developed and users can get involved in all kindsa ways. Mine has always been “evangelism” of a sort, though I really don’t do that much “Linux evangelism” anymore; and donating dollars.

Just something else to consider when choosing a distro.

More PCLinuxOS Awesomeness

Posted on by Robin

It’s not just the bestest, most wonderfulest, and awesomeful Linux distro in the history of ever, it’s even more! It’s free e-mail, free image hosting, chat, the best Linux-related monthly magazine (viewable on the web or downloadable as a PDF). The community is very active, and not just in the forums, but elsewhere contributing to the whole project in a thousand ways. This is truly a community-driven distro – with wonderful perks no other distro offers that I know of.

It’s also, apparently, some kinda well-guarded secret or something. I’m absolutely amaaaaazed that this distro hasn’t been Number One for all this time. But I suspect that a lot of users of other distros who would flee from systemd, commercialism, and corporate disregard for the community, will find there way to PCLinuxOS as I have.