GhostBSD and PCLinuxOS

Posted on by Robin

Both systemd-free, both pretty much free of politics (now). While GhostBSD remains my daily driver, PCLinuxOS is now my backup OS on a separate hard drive. I have ditched MX-Linux for a few simple reasons, both technical and “ethical:”

  • Power settings misbehave. I have to manually turn my monitor off in spite of it being set up to do so after the screensaver activates.
  • Betterbird is only available as a Flatpak in MX-Linux, which makes it slower to load and work. In PCLinuxOS it is in the repositories and updates as it should.
  • The cool MX-tool set is also found in PCLinuxOS. All of the cool tools.
  • PCLinuxOS is truly systemd-free, unpolluted with systemd components to satisfy dependencies.
  • Debian (on which MX-Linux is built) has gone “full woke,” expelling “undesirable” contributors for heinous crimes like being white, male, heterosexual, and even – GASP! – Christian!
    This will certainly affect every downstream distro sooner or later.
  • Overzealous “moderators” on MX-forums regularly censure any talk of even technical issues like XLibre that don’t fit the “Debian narrative.”

I’m not sure why they call PCLinuxOS “the boomer distro,” when probably most Linux distributions are used by “boomers” anyway. Later generations are accustomed to taking what they are given and don’t seem to value software freedom like their parents and grandparents do. The same is probably true of all the BSDs as well.

Having a Linux OS as a “backup” makes sense because a lot of little things – even in the fantastic GhostBSD OS – are buggy and awkward. Evolution takes a full minute to load up. Brave browser (which only works in GhostBSD by adding “Linux compatability” which I’m sure slows things down a lot and prevents updates to the browser itself, so to avoid all that I have to settle for ungoogled-chromium and use a /hosts file to kill ads. Updates are easy but when you have a mix of Linux stuff with FreeBSD stuff and GhostBSD’s own stuff, it kind of sets up some troublesome issues with updating. I’m no longer as confident in updates to GhostBSD as I was before. Looking at the forums, I find that I’m hardly alone in that.

Neither OS is as trouble-free as the big, popular one-size-fits-all Linux distros like Mint and the ‘buntus, but they meet my ethical requirements most importantly, and my tech requirements regarding demand on resources, and stupid corporate bloatware like systemd.

The journey continues.

Ethics and Practicality

Posted on by Robin

In a perfect world, there would be a totally ethical desktop operating system, free of software developed by people who hate most other people, and free of corporate spyware and lock-in (you must use only their software to do whatever).

With GhostBSD I came pretty close. The BSDs are largely free of corporate traps like systemd, and can run most of the software I want. In order to do that, however, I had to install all kindsa Linux stuff to the OS. Ungoogled-chromium is great, but not so good on privacy. The best in that department is Brave. Available in GhostBSD only if you add all that Linux stuff so it can run on GhostBSD. No Flatpacks, AppImages, or any way to use software that hasn’t been packaged for FreeBSD. Thunderbird is woke as all getout, so I used Evolution. But Gnome went off the deep end and is also woke as all getout, banning straight white males and folks who aren’t far-left communists from the Gnome project. KDE – well, they’re all insisting on masks and social distancing at their little confab this year. Betterbird is my first choice, but again, not available even with all the Linux stuff added in.

Question: If the software I want can’t run without installing all that Linux stuff, why not just run Linux?

  • Linux is corporate-owned now, make no mistake. IBM, RedHat, Microshit, all the Big Tech guys control the project and pay Linux Torvalds a million dollar salary.
  • Linux is woke as hell. Expelling long-time contributors and maintainers for stupid, woke reasons.
  • Linux isn’t strictly free anymore. For practical reasons it includes a lot of non-free “blobs” and keeps adding more and more.

All good reasons not to use it – and not to add it to an otherwise awesome FreeBSD system. Unless you want to choose your own software instead of whatever they offer (Mozilla spyware, Gnome woke shit, or proprietary stuff that defeats the whole idea of Free and Open Source Software (hereafter: FOSS).

  • GhostBSD is a desktop form of FreeBSD, with a very small team of developers.
  • FreeBSD is years – decades at points – behind Linux. Perhaps that is because
  • There’s no big money backing FreeBSD.

So there just ain’t any perfect world where an ordinary boy like me can find a totally ethical desktop operating system. It comes down to practicality sooner or later after all. I’ll make it as ethical as far as I can, by what I choose to do with it. It’s back to Linux for now.

First Use on GhostBSD

Posted on by Robin

Hardware compatibility is a thing when it comes to comparing the BSDs with Linux operating systems. Because of all the corporate money behind the Linux kernel (Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, etc) and other big support, and built-in “non-free blobs” like drivers and firmware, it’s a lot easier to “plug-and-play” on most Linux distros than with even the easiest of the BSDs like NomadBSD and GhostBSD.

But my quest for “ethical purity” in my tech choices still drives me away from Linux, from Microsoft, from Mozilla, and other software from unethical and “woke” coders. Compromise may be necessary sometimes but I am always hesitant to do that. My choice, my OCD I guess. But after a fresh installation of the latest and greatest GhostBSD, I put lessons learned in my last experience to work and had a perfect, functioning OS in a few minutes!

First, update! Then I used Software Station like Christ used a whip to drive out the money-changers and “cleanse” the OS of Firefox and Thunderbird, replacing them with ungoogled-chromium and Evolution, repectively. Then I installed a few favorites, LibreOffice, Xournalapp, Inkscape, gartoon icons (just for some silly fun), the hplip printer management stuff, and a few extra fonts and goodies. Software Station is a sweet “gooey” (GUI) application that works just like the old familiar Synaptic Package Manager I enjoyed in Debian, MX, antiX, PCLinuxOS and others.

Cleansed of evil and sweetended with a few new favorite applications, the next step was to get sound working through my headphones instead of the little built-in speaker in my computer tower. For that, I returned here for easy terminal commands to get it set up in seconds:

With gratitude to ericbsd, the leader of the GhostBSD Project, for this precise and simple solution. I’m using Xfce instead of MATE, so used sudo thunar to navigate to /etc/sysctl and edited the file with Mousepad. For some reason, a reboot was necessary after making these changes even though that’s not ordinarily the case. No big deal. Sound fixed!

Printer setup for most GhostBSD users is probably best done using “CUPS” like we did in Linux before Linux turned to the Dark Side. Because I have an HP printer, discovery and installation was easy using the hplip interface. “Vermaden” has an excellent page on setting up a printer in FreeBSD here. Complete with pictures so even I can understand it! 😀

Those were my only hardware issues in getting GhostBSD up and running with “purity,” beauty, and as usual, with mind-bending speed. One of the best things about GhostBSD is the presence of it’s contributors – including the project leader – in the GhostBSD forums. They can offer excellent support and some cool ideas as well.

Enjoy!

Balance

Posted on by Robin

That’s what I’m learning these days… balance. On one hand, there’s the over-arching need to make ethical choices when it comes to software, even in the world of Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS), since some of the best and best-known FOSS companies are extreme left wingnuts. Mozilla has branded itself “a global crew of activists” and spent a million dollars on a fancy retreat in Zambia to host a workshop on “Feminist, Decolonial, LGBTQIA+, Climate Justice using Al” event. Woke, far-flung-leftist crap. Also a Mozilla partner, the folks who make the Thunderbird e-mail client fired their very first employee, who ascended to one of the most important contributors of the project – because he refused to participate in “woke” bullshit. He went on to create Betterbird, a really nice fork of Thunderbird! Mozilla’s former CEO met a similar fate – fired for not going along with far-left, anti-family, anti-God, anti-wholesomeness stuff – went on to create the wonderful Brave browser. I want to support these guys!

Even Linux itself has gone woke. In the interest of “ethical purity,” I went to GhostBSD: No Linux, no Mozilla, no Google, no Microsoft. Oh, and no systemd (IBM/RedHat). Yay for ethical purity!

But on the other hand:

Software has to work. And without complex, resource-draining excesses to make it work on my hardware. I wasn’t able to get Betterbird on GhostBSD, so I settled for Evolution. To get Brave browser to work on GhostBSD, you have to install all kindsa “Linux stuff” that “makes” it work on BSD. So I settled for ungoogled-chromium. For as long as I could.

I remember for years being warned about updates breaking things on Linux. It’s true, updates can break things, but in all the years I used Linux, it actually happened only twice. On GhostBSD, an update broke Evolution and I settled for Geary, which in some respects is nicer because it’s so very simple yet full-featured. The very next update kinda sorta “fixed” Evolution, but broke a bunch of other stuff and made the OS sluggish. Very few of the nice “gooey” (GUI – Graphical User Interface) tools I always enjoyed in Linux are available for the BSDs. And the ones that are there are decades behind Linux when it comes to function, versatility, and ease of use.

A balance between “ethical purity” and practicality is what I need.

So far, the best I’ve come up with is MX-Linux (because I insist on having a full desktop environment), with Betterbird and Brave replacing the defaults, Thunderbird and Firefox (Mozilla). While my “ethical purity” side isn’t entirely happy about using Linux instead of GhostBSD, it’s happy that I can support the two guys that Mozilla kicked out for refusing to embrace evil. And my practical side? It’s delighted.

My Ideologically-driven Tech Choice

Posted on by Robin

In my previous post I described that my tech decisions are largely ideology-driven. I switched to Linux because Microsoft turned to the dark side and it was becoming a chore to use anyway. I switched to Startpage because Google went over to the dark side, with data mining and spyware and all kindsa evil stuff. I switched from Firefox to Brave because Mozilla went woke, partnered with Google, and took their famous browser down an ever-darkening path. ISPs, cellphone companies, all the same story – switching whenever possible for ethical reasons. My most recent post describes how Linux – right down to the very kernel itself – has also turned to the dark side. Do I still have a choice now? Microsoft is over-the-top evil, Apple is crazy expensive and also ethically challenged at points. So now that Linux has been twisted into a Microshit/IBM/Politically-correct mess, what else is there?

Glad you asked. Lookie here:

This here is GhostBSD, with the Xfce desktop and Cairo-dock tied on just for some fun eye candy. You can use whatever desktop you like in any of the BSDs, but my readers know what a Xfce fanboy I’ve become after trying most of the others. I may experiment with Openbox again, since I grew to love it so much in Crunchbang Linux years ago.

Like Debian Linux with it’s Stable and Testing branches, BSD offers Stable and Current. I always stick with Stable, being the techno-phobic boy I am, still scared that pushing the wrong button on my computer might ignite the atmosphere and annihilate all life on Earth. How did such a tech-scared user end up on BSD for cry’n out loud?

Because just like Ubuntu – before it turned crazy – made Debian Linux usable by us ordinary mortals, GhostBSD is doing the same thing for FreeBSD! It ain’t quite as simple as Ubuntu, Mint, or MX-Linux, but I’m not exactly a total novice at this stuff anymore, and merely using it one can’t help but learn a little. It’s important that we do! You wouldn’t just take off in a new car without reading the owner’s manual or at least be familiar with it’s basic features. Responsible computing means you do a little reading and research before diving in. I did that – but not much – and I still got it right the first time as if I knew what I was doing!

GhostBSD is built on FreeBSD Stable, with cool tools and GUI (Graphical User Interface, pronounced “gooey”) apps to make it simple for us point-and-click users who are taking our first steps into the BSDs. Perhaps many users move on to the other BSDs, and many – like Linux Mint users, perhaps – just stay put. I love learning, but I’m slow at it. But let me tell you what’s to love about the BSDs besides the simplicity and utility of GhostBSD:

The BSDs are faithful to “the UNIX way” of doing things. There’s no “one ring to rule them all” big-brother-like supervisory software watching and logging and evaluating every little freaking process like systemd on most Linux distributions. There’s no corporate sponsors shoveling money into the projects in an effort to buy influence or assert control – also unlike Linux, whose lead developer is paid a huge, exorbitant salary by the Linux Foundation which has been effectively bought my Microsoft and IBM. Has that money influenced the Linux kernel? How could it not?! BSD is free of that happy horse hockey. Apples IOS and Sony’s Playstation software are both built from the BSDs, didjya know that? Yeah! But they didn’t try to take over the project. At least no one’s doing it yet.

BSD is FAST on even modest hardware. I mean, zoom, zing, whoosh fast. Blazing, mind-bending speed, and it doesn’t “eat all your RAM” the way Linux does. It really is different from Linux even though they’re both built from UNIX. Linux doesn’t love it’s mother the way BSD does. It’s not what Mom hoped it would grow up to be. It forsook it’s noble heritage and embraced the dark side, lured by big bucks from big corporate players. Little does Linux know, even though it’s been warned over and over again, that EMBRACE –> EXTEND –> EXTINGUISH is and always has been Microsoft’s strategy. Linux will be assimilated, and resistance – now that it has accepted Microsoft’s money and influence – is futile.

Enjoy your glamor and fame while you may, Linux, but it comes at a great price. BSD hasn’t got the nanoprobes and can still resist the Borg. Even though there are four or five BSDs, they all share that faithfulness to UNIX and the freedom and openness it provides. The BSDs operate under a different license as well, rather than GNU, which also provides a measure of resistance to the Borg. Yet it’s still free in every sense.

Yup, it’s still all about ethics for this boy, and yes, there are still alternatives to compromising with evil.

Ideologically-Driven Tech Choices

Posted on by Robin

Most of my readers know how ideologically-driven I am, even down to my choices of software, operating systems, every. Little. Thing.

  • Mozilla – makers of the most popular web browser in the history of ever – went “woke” to the point of firing their CEO for daring to express an opinion (personally, not as a representative of the company) that wasn’t “politically correct” and conflicted with the toxic “wokeism” that has infected the country. When they did this (and a bunch of other stupid things they’ve done to Firefox since then), I dumped Firefox and switched to Brave browser.
  • Goya food brands was raked over the coals for daring to support Israel against the terrorists who have always sought to destroy them. When the media did that, I dumped a favorite (and ideologically left-leaning) food brand and switched to Goya.
  • Fox News – previously a reliable source of unbiased news – decided to compromise their own credibility and neutrality and start appealing to the far left. When Fox News did that, I switched to Newsmax.

I have a long and distinguished history of making choices based almost entirely on ideology as of first importance. I won’t settle for or do business with unethical companies like Google or Microshit. Not when there are viable alternatives! And if and when there are no viable alternatives, I’d rather do without than pay anything to an unethical business. Is that weird? Excessive? Obsessive? Maybe so, but I don’t care.

Now I’m talking about more than just some little bit of software, like a single web browser among hundreds to choose from. This time it’s an entire ecosystem which is supposed to a free, open-source, globally cooperative effort to produce and maintain the Linux kernel itself. It, too, has now sold out, gone woke, and abandoned the ideals that made it great. Right down to the very core – the Linux kernel itself – it’s ideologically unsupportable for me. Here is why:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/10/russian-coders-removed-from-linux-maintainers-list-due-to-sanction-concerns/

Linux kicked out all of it’s Russian maintainers – because they’re Russians. How dare they! And since that wasn’t enough,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sf0epTxkTE

They have changed the Code of Conduct to preclude “politically incorrect” contributors from working on the Linux kernel.

It’s official, folks: Linux has gone woke.

I’ve been a ‘nixer for years and years! Can I actually walk away from my beloved Linux family after all these years over “mere” ideology? You bet your booty I can. There are still alternatives to choose from. And I’ve already made the switch! More about that in my next post.