Post by @MsDropbear42@infosec.space
am becoming so despondent at the slopbot invasion in linux, seemingly getting worse weekly [oh linus! 💔], that more & more i ponder a possible #BSD escape route, yet nothing i read anywhere so far gives me any confidence at all that i would be capable of handling all the technical challenges involved. i just want a daily desktop, not a server, & i want it not for a technical challenge at all but simply so i can use my apps to do the stuff i need... which is not at all database or server related in any way. i've just finished perusing a few dozen subreddit threads on the three arguably best known BSDs, & it was nothing but depressing & demoralising
in 2013 when i tired of 20+ years of redmond arseholery & shitfuckery, i discovered linux & was delighted with it, entirely meeting all my needs ever since. now however, with this very same hitherto paradise apparently rushing to sleep with the enemy, it feels like i have no realistic escape option
faaaaaaaaaaaaarque!
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@MsDropbear42 Given Linus’ complete move over to the dark side 😡, my thoughts are further intensifying about escape paths. Further playing with my Haiku VM is really endearing it to me. It has almost all of the apps i need, otherwise has solid alternatives, is fast as fuck, is quirky & fun. Atm the major unsolved issue afaict, which would be a showstopper if i can’t solve or workaround, is security. Specifically it is atm only single-user, so one does not login to a session, one simply boots directly to the desktop, & similarly afaict not only is there no disk nor partition LUKS [or similar] encryption, so far i’ve not found a way to even just be able to do, or mimic, a #TrueCrypt / #VeraCrypt function of creating an encrypted container in which one can then securely store one’s docs & data.
If i can’t solve that, then a workaround would be to keep basically nothing important in the #Haiku partition, but access “my” stuff in my existing Shared Data partition that lives on another SSD. In other words, i’ve more or less reached the limits of the VM’s purpose now, & prolly need to embrace attempting to install it in a spare partition in Towie [ignoring the old clunker single-task media pooter, the actual "doing stuff" pooters are "Towie" & "Lappy" 🤪], then see if i can access Shared from it. Were it so, then… well, it all becomes very exciting!
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1 boost
@MsDropbear42 ah well, alas. it seems my brief flirtation with the interesting #Haiku must now be at an end.
- installed it in Towie’s spare partition on the larger of my two new SSDs, in which already are two working non-encrypted data partitions
- boots fine, if the installer USB-stick is still plugged in
- boots into rescue screen when stick unplugged [ie, the installer seems to have put the bootloader onto the stick not the partition]
- with stick back in, boots fine again, so then explored possible mounting other drives & partitions
- can see both those non-LUKS data partitions on the same SSD
- warned me when mounting them that due to them not having the BeOS filesystem, & the Beta nature of Haiku, it would happily let me mount them as read-write but advised me tis safer to mount as read-only to prevent risk of data loss on them! So, ofc, i did RO
- in doing so, i realised this was the puckering of the lips for the kiss of death for Haiku
- reopened the Mounts GUI app, looked for the essential LUKS Shared Data partition back on the original SSD [wherein also resides Arch]. Nada, zilch… that partition is invisible to Haiku
- i recognised this as Haiku now delivering the kiss of death
tis sad, genuinely sad
So now, in coming weeks, hope rests with the #BSDs, & this intriguing #OpenIndiana wotsit. Ofc, if these possibilities also fall short of what i can accept, then i suppose it’s just me resigning myself to an inevitability of wall to wall enslopped penguins without any pragmatic escape left for me
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@MsDropbear42 I've been attempting to install Mint on the old acer but can't get it to boot from the hard drive. It works when running on the usb stick but, despite all fiddling with the bios, can't get it to boot from the hard drive. I'm going to try an older version today.
@smitjo oh wotta bumma! if that pc once had windoze on it, is there any chance that silly system's irritating "Secure Boot" is enabled in the bios? i know you've already waged battle with said bios, but thought i'd double-check on that one detail? 🤞🤞🤞
@MsDropbear42 It had Windows XP on it. I have played with the various settings in bios but with no luck. On my desk top pc I have Ubuntu and if I let the firmware update it tends to assume that ms windows will be the os and have to change to custom keys or it gives the 'no os installed,' message. I can't find a similar setting in the netbook bios though. It's currently installing 21.3 xfce. If it plays up too I'll double check the secure boot settings.
@MsDropbear42 provisional result is Success. After installing an earlier version things seem to be working ok. Very slow but that's expected as it's an old unit - manufactured in 2010.
@smitjo well done! 💃 however, i do wonder what explains that success, vs the current version's failure, on the same HW 🤯🤷♀️
@MsDropbear42 However, after leaving it unattended for a half hour or so it's gone into sleep mode and is proving difficult to awaken from its slumber. Seems to be more comatosed than sleeping. 😵💫
@MsDropbear42 Not that it's any of my business but I'd be curious which version of #BDS you decide to investigate.
Not that it's any of my business
nonsense! this is fedi -- everything is everyone's business! 🤪🙃
which version of #BDS you decide to investigate
first off, i simply must really emphasise --- atm my knowledge of #BSD approximates that of Linux when i first heard of it in 2013, ie...
i know narthink, naaaaaaaarrrrthink, herr commandant / col-on-el hogan!
that said, i've been trying to begin my learning curve in recent weeks via research, from which i shall probably try, in this sequence...
...initially as i always do, in dedicated qemu VMs in my current penguin, & if then one or more of them look/s like they might be a serious possibility for me, then i would hope to move onto HW installation
i had big hopes for #GhostBSD, simply coz apparently it would already have done all the dirty work for me wrt setting up the DE, but sadly a knowledgeable fedier informed me of it having some serious security issues, so i have moved it off my shortlist
last week another kind soul here in fedi informed me of something else also unknown to me; #OpenIndiana, so i hope this week to also research it, then decide if it warrants also trying it in a VM
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@MsDropbear42
"nonsense! this is fedi -- everything is everyone's business!" LOL, I'm quite introverted so I'm not really bold in my opinions or questions. 😃
It might be possible that we have some similarities in that we are somewhat concerned about the impending slopification of the world, particularly the Linux kernel.
I don't have any VMs to play with (and limited ability or understanding to implement such tools) but I have three (older) laptops I use: my Dell Inspiron work machine with #LinuxMint 22.3, a Lenovo ThinkPad with #Debian 13, and an HP can't-remenber-model on which I installed #FreeBSD.
I chose FreeBSD cos' I grew up with Windows and I found instuctions for installing Xorg GUI on FreeBSD. CLI I find somewhat intimidating (although I make do quite well with command line in SAS, Stata, SPSS, and Windows powershell).
But I gotta say, Linux was a step learning curve, but BSD is next level complexity.
@PaulMcEwan that's all most interesting & i thank you for sharing it. fwiw, i "only" use VMs coz i love testing / learning about alternative systems, & though i do have three pooters here, each is dedicated to various purposes already such that i would not like to sacrifice those just to experiment. otoh if you do have spare pooters, then i see no problem in using them in lieu of VMs... & in an important sense that would be the superior way in that you then directly get to assess HW compatibility.
but BSD is next level complexity
this is very intimidating to me. i have come across various peeps, during my brief research so far, saying stuff like "desktop bsd is now where desktop linux was 20 years ago", & tbh i find that so terrifying as to almost be tempted to just abandon my intended bsd investigations. i first came to linux when its desktop paradigm was already well advanced from its early decades, so i never had to worry about or learn the arcane coding magic needed to make various HW bits & pieces work... i had the luxury of comparatively sophisticated DEs with graphical tools available... so if bsd might need me to get deep into the coding weeds just to make basic things work, i'll prolly just give up
somewhat concerned about the impending slopification of the world, particularly the Linux kernel
yes, but with all respect, you put it too mildly for me. i am emphatically against so-called gen-ai & llms, on staunch moral & practical bases, viz:
- largest theft of private IP in human history
- massive water + energy demands as climate crisis intensifies
- authoritative bullshit generation via unsolvable hallucinations
- whole-internet continuous DDoS attacks by web-scraping AI-feeding bots
i'm beyond disgusted that so many humans have again exhibited their despicable absence of morality, & idiot credulity
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@MsDropbear42 well, i've spent some time now researching #OpenIndiana, via these sources if anyone's interested:
https://www.openindiana.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenIndiana
https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-openindiana-and-why-does-it-matter/
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=openindiana
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsiF0Lfl2FU
https://medium.com/@post_18657/openindiana-hipster-an-excursion-to-the-past-c26110673659
https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/1ixpwxz/off_topicany_tried_openindiana_share_your/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23K-Bh0YA-M
https://linuxmind.dev/2025/09/04/complete-os-guide-openindiana-how-it-works-orientation-and-curiosities/
https://www.quora.com/Solaris-Whats-special-for-OpenIndiana-compare-with-Linux-and-BSD
though i was tempted to d/l an ISO & give it a burl anyway in a VM, i've decided not to, & thus to end the brief contemplation of this as my possible escape route. based on the research i picked up a strong vibe this would not much suit me; OI is really aimed for server rather than desktop usage, despite it having an old MATE DE out of the box. it has a tiny community, no GUI pkg manager, questionable security against contemporary standards, & i would hold grave doubts of being able to acquire most of my important pkgs from its repos, which would be the only recourse coz, eg, i would very much doubt apps like FirefoxNightly, GnuCash, KeePassXC, RustDesk et al make variants for this non-Linux system. overall, it feels like a massive trip into the past.
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