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The author is an untrustworthy Ubuntu astroturfer who picks fights and insults his critics on the platform he publishes the paid articles he writes.

lproven 3y ago
The author -- me -- rejects every one of those accusations. I am a former member of staff at both Red Hat and SUSE, and I have coming up on 30 years of experience on Linux across coming up on 100 different distros. Among the OSes on bare metal on my home machines are macOS, FreeBSD, RISC OS, ArcaOS, FreeDOS, PC DOS, Haiku, Oberon/A2, ChromeOS Flex, Q4OS, Windows XP, Windows 7, and Windows 10... alongside Ubuntu and other distros. As for Ubuntu itself, as it happens, I thoroughly dislike GNOME and never recommend or use it. Among Linux distros which have been my full-time desktop platform were SUSE and Caldera OpenLinux. My laptops mostly run Ubuntu with the Unity desktop, with Snap packaging removed and disabled, but I am currently assessing a move to MX Linux. I've been using UNIX systems since 1988 and I still don't like it much. Case sensitivity is a pain, the shell is pointlessly arcane, and I am not a programmer -- not because I can't, because I can but I recognize that I'm not very good at it -- and don't really want an OS designed for programmers. My favourite OSes over a 41 years in computing so far were VAX/VMS, Acorn RISC OS, and Classic MacOS, although I was a keen user of IBM OS/2 2 for some years. I am a paid full-time member of staff at The Register, where I have been for 2 years today, as it happens. Before that, I freelanced for them from 2009. Before that I wrote for the Inquirer.
- LargoLasskhyfv 3y ago
  MX too bloated. Feel the power of ANTIX with RUNIT, run it RAM, setup some persistence on some storage in whichever way you like, disable and remove all the fluff like conky, use IceWM as WM, and zzzfm as filemanager, make it look nice, feel the insane speed. Remaster. Then this is yours. And stays that way, whith some remastering from time to time, due to updates, whatever. Giggle like a madman for not having to care about all the useless 'make work, make work!' anymore. Relax. Edit: While you're at it, deploy https://github.com/graysky2/profile-sync-daemon https://github.com/graysky2/profile-sync-daemon / https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Profile-sync-daemon https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Profile-sync-daemon or something like that for FF. That's the icing on the cake, for FF not to access your /home , whereever that may be stored. Works wonders for Sideberry, and preserves your precious SSD. OFC that applies to any distro. Edit: s/Openbox/IceWM
  - lproven 3y ago
    I've tried and reviewed antiX: https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/01/antix_23/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/01/antix_23/ For me, I think it's a mess. Four desktops, 3 file managers, multiple app menus, panels, text editors, etc. Work out one best item, pick it and use it. IMHO they need to stop shipping 3, 4, 5 or more alternatives for each function. If people have strong enough views, they can go choose their own. The same applies to Window Maker Live. It's how distros used to be in the 1990s, and it was a pain then, too... but then most of us didn't have broadband so trying out multiple tools was much harder and slower. Then, there was a reason. Now, there isn't.
    - LargoLasskhyfv 3y ago
      Yes. I can understand how you see it like that. It looks like a mess. But it can be made to fit your needs. Easily. Just deinstall everthing that you don't like, install anything that's missing, choose some theme, deinstall the rest... And remaster. From there on, it's like being made for you, because you made it so :-) OFC you could say that about any distro, but then you'd lose the specific scripting for booting it from whereever, running it live in RAM, while having persistence in various ways, which is the USP of it. From that POV your review didn't go deep enough, I think. Sorry ;-) For me it's like a debian-distro-kit, enabling me to customize the shit out of it fast and easy, while having access to the whole Multiverse of everything that's Debian, it's update and administration mechanisms, and so on. But usually not needing to. Because it just works. Fast. Because in RAM. Edit: Which reminds me of Q4OS which you mentioned. Regarding the distro-kit aspect, I once added the Trinity repositories to Antix, installed it, fiddled with some superflous stuff, removed that, and remastered. BAM! Had a fucking fast trinity desktop running in RAM! Just like that. Though I'm not using that anymore, because no need. Icewm & zzzfm are enough for me.
      - lproven 3y ago
        That's absolutely fine. You do you. For me, that is way more work than I want. I am old and grumpy and want an easy life and tools that work acceptably out of the box. For playing around, that's different. Thus A2 and Haiku and things. But for work, if it needs that much work to adjust the shipped distro to me, then it is the wrong distro. There are good reasons I don't run Arch.

lproven 3y ago

The author -- me -- rejects every one of those accusations. I am a former member of staff at both Red Hat and SUSE, and I have coming up on 30 years of experience on Linux across coming up on 100 different distros. Among the OSes on bare metal on my home machines are macOS, FreeBSD, RISC OS, ArcaOS, FreeDOS, PC DOS, Haiku, Oberon/A2, ChromeOS Flex, Q4OS, Windows XP, Windows 7, and Windows 10... alongside Ubuntu and other distros. As for Ubuntu itself, as it happens, I thoroughly dislike GNOME and never recommend or use it. Among Linux distros which have been my full-time desktop platform were SUSE and Caldera OpenLinux. My laptops mostly run Ubuntu with the Unity desktop, with Snap packaging removed and disabled, but I am currently assessing a move to MX Linux. I've been using UNIX systems since 1988 and I still don't like it much. Case sensitivity is a pain, the shell is pointlessly arcane, and I am not a programmer -- not because I can't, because I can but I recognize that I'm not very good at it -- and don't really want an OS designed for programmers. My favourite OSes over a 41 years in computing so far were VAX/VMS, Acorn RISC OS, and Classic MacOS, although I was a keen user of IBM OS/2 2 for some years. I am a paid full-time member of staff at The Register, where I have been for 2 years today, as it happens. Before that, I freelanced for them from 2009. Before that I wrote for the Inquirer.

LargoLasskhyfv 3y ago
MX too bloated. Feel the power of ANTIX with RUNIT, run it RAM, setup some persistence on some storage in whichever way you like, disable and remove all the fluff like conky, use IceWM as WM, and zzzfm as filemanager, make it look nice, feel the insane speed. Remaster. Then this is yours. And stays that way, whith some remastering from time to time, due to updates, whatever. Giggle like a madman for not having to care about all the useless 'make work, make work!' anymore. Relax. Edit: While you're at it, deploy https://github.com/graysky2/profile-sync-daemon https://github.com/graysky2/profile-sync-daemon / https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Profile-sync-daemon https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Profile-sync-daemon or something like that for FF. That's the icing on the cake, for FF not to access your /home , whereever that may be stored. Works wonders for Sideberry, and preserves your precious SSD. OFC that applies to any distro. Edit: s/Openbox/IceWM
- lproven 3y ago
  I've tried and reviewed antiX: https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/01/antix_23/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/01/antix_23/ For me, I think it's a mess. Four desktops, 3 file managers, multiple app menus, panels, text editors, etc. Work out one best item, pick it and use it. IMHO they need to stop shipping 3, 4, 5 or more alternatives for each function. If people have strong enough views, they can go choose their own. The same applies to Window Maker Live. It's how distros used to be in the 1990s, and it was a pain then, too... but then most of us didn't have broadband so trying out multiple tools was much harder and slower. Then, there was a reason. Now, there isn't.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 3y ago
    Yes. I can understand how you see it like that. It looks like a mess. But it can be made to fit your needs. Easily. Just deinstall everthing that you don't like, install anything that's missing, choose some theme, deinstall the rest... And remaster. From there on, it's like being made for you, because you made it so :-) OFC you could say that about any distro, but then you'd lose the specific scripting for booting it from whereever, running it live in RAM, while having persistence in various ways, which is the USP of it. From that POV your review didn't go deep enough, I think. Sorry ;-) For me it's like a debian-distro-kit, enabling me to customize the shit out of it fast and easy, while having access to the whole Multiverse of everything that's Debian, it's update and administration mechanisms, and so on. But usually not needing to. Because it just works. Fast. Because in RAM. Edit: Which reminds me of Q4OS which you mentioned. Regarding the distro-kit aspect, I once added the Trinity repositories to Antix, installed it, fiddled with some superflous stuff, removed that, and remastered. BAM! Had a fucking fast trinity desktop running in RAM! Just like that. Though I'm not using that anymore, because no need. Icewm & zzzfm are enough for me.
    - lproven 3y ago
      That's absolutely fine. You do you. For me, that is way more work than I want. I am old and grumpy and want an easy life and tools that work acceptably out of the box. For playing around, that's different. Thus A2 and Haiku and things. But for work, if it needs that much work to adjust the shipped distro to me, then it is the wrong distro. There are good reasons I don't run Arch.