Two-Pronged Solution

Posted on by Robin

It can’t just be an either / or type thing I guess.

  • If I want the cool GUI tools that let me do stuff like
  • format a USB stick
  • make a bootable iso of my installed OS, and
  • write that iso to a USB stick, hopefully with persistence,

Then I have to use a Linux distro that has all those tools, like MX-Linux or RefractaOS, both of which are wicked-cool, nice ‘n’ “gooey” (meaning they have a GUI – Graphical User Interface), and easy to use. But the price of that convenience is:

  • The Linux kernel: Corporate, politicized, woke, bloated, and soon to be polluted with AI “vibe coding.”
  • The abandonment of the philosophy that made Linux and FOSS great: “The UNIX Way.”
  • The loss of freedoms imposed by the kernel and the developers and coders who write that is dependent on other software like systemd
  • The cluttered, messy way even simple stuff becomes in every desktop Linux OS

So I keep MX-Linux on a separate HDD just for the tools, like when I have to format a USB stick or make a bootable one. 

AND

I keep GhostBSD on a separate HDD to use for daily computing. Free of systemd. Free of corporate, woke, AI-slop-ridden, politically-correct bullshit, and free of all the unnecessary and redundant resource-hogging cruft that most Linux OSes insist on. It’s easy, gooey, fast, and free. And as “ethically pure” an OS as you can find for the desktop.

My Xubuntu 12.04 Desktop

Posted on by Robin

This is my Xubuntu 12.04 desktop! I have Seamonkey installed and set as the default browser/email client. The latest version is 2.8, and unexpectedly, it required me to add the Ubuntuzilla ppa to get it. It’s a bunch faster than the newest Firefox, and still accepts most add-ons and extensions that matter to me: Scribefore Classic, AdBlockPlus, stuff like that.

I moved the default launcher to the bottom where it functions as a kinda-sorta dock with all my application launchers and applets (weather, analog clock, PCManFM (much nicer for me than Thunar), the Parole music player, and the Abiword writer.

I asked on the Ubuntu forums about why Xubu has all kinds of Gnome stuff included, when it’s supposed to be an Xfce distro, and Xfce is supposed to be lighter and faster than Gnome. At first thought, you might suppose that all that Gnome stuff is unnecessary and would slow Xubu down a lot. Maybe it does slow it down some (compared to straight Debian Xfce or SalineOS or the way-cool, newbie friendly Slackware derivative called SalixOS for sure), but it also makes it a complete and full-featured Xfce spin that behaves as elegantly as it’s “full-Gnome” parent, Ubuntu.

It took Ubuntu to “tame” Debian and make it useable by mere mortals like me. It looks like SalixOS has done the same thing for Slackware! I’ll test it when I have some time to play and post a review here. I’m fascinated by SalixOS because of it’s ultra long term support and reputation for rock-stability (like Debian).

It’s probably faster than Xubu, but perhaps less full-featured because it doesn’t add in all the Gnomie stuff. But for non-technical desktop Linux users, Xubuntu is every bit as easy as the other “friendly” beginner Linux distros, but still easy on modest hardware like my 8-year-old Dell.