- cross-posted to:
- linux@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- linux@programming.dev
I’ve been using Linux for years, but as the proprietary alternatives get more aggressive with telemetry and adverts, I wanted to document the choices that actually keep my desktop predictable.
This isn’t a manual, but a practical overview of my setup. From why I’ve settled on CachyOS and KDE Plasma for my main rig, to the reality of dealing with proprietary software and app compatibility in 2026. It’s just an honest look at the transition and why I’m done with the corporate defaults.
You must log in or # to comment.
I’ve had discussions with my friends about using Linux full time. I got one of them to move their mom’s old All-in-one to Mint since it couldnt move to Win11. Most of them worry about anti-cheat and such, but I tell them consistently “the games we play all work, how do you think I play with y’all?”
I’ve started moving everything I do to FOSS, or at least respectful, alternatives. My whole world has become more intentional and free the more detached from the “convenience” of big tech solutions.
Just had a conversation at work about using Linux full time. Coworkers asking me what issues I have and what games I can play.
I mean it’s not all sunshine and rainbows…but I told them my Start Menu opens every time I need it. I don’t have explorer.exe randomly crashing. I can search in my Start Menu for things and they actually come up properly. Oh and with btrfs snapshots I can update whenever and if it breaks I just rollback and wait for a fix. Which has happened…once in the last 5 months of using Cachy+Plasma.
I feel like I can actually use my computer now. With Windows I dreaded doing updates. With Linux I update whenever I want and it doesn’t fucking bother me at all.
Why ‘still’? Linux is only getting better and other options are getting worse.
Maybe a “Youtube-like title” for the fun (or dare I say, habit) of it?
I would explain why I still use my butt to poop in 2026, butt I assume you already know the most likely explanation …
The linked blog has a normal title.
Bro still buttin’, ohio hand-squish rizz fr rn
This just in: Why I’m staying with my husband that doesn’t beat me, doesn’t gaslight me, doesn’t rape children or explain daily why rapists should run our country. He helps with chores too. The reason will shock you.
It’s his dick, obviously
Alright, I’m lost in the analogy now. What’s the dick in Linux?
That sense of superiority for using Linux? The ‘btw’ those arch folks use?
btw I use arch is what you say when you show your partner your ikea shark and stripey socks
Maybe they meant the Linux mascot, the duck named Dux right?
Xenia for sure
My dick; I fuck Linux so hard
What surprises me more is that someone feels the need to justify staying on Linux at all. That’s a conversation that shouldn’t even exist.
The question has almost always been the other way around: why use anything else?
I mean I kinda get it. BSD is pretty cool in its own way.
I mean, I bet that cute lil’ daemon mascot makes it worth it. :D
Yes. I have used Linux for 26 years. Never have I ever considered leaving.
I was waiting for “I use Arch, BTW.”
I’ve said some negative things about KDE Plasma feeling like three desktop oses taped together, but the latest version the fixed all that and it’s pretty good.
I still want to destroy all the hotksys and window decorations, but it just works, and it works well, and it works for edge cases where Gnome and Cosmic crash or fail silently.
KDE is pretty good, and I say that about a very small amount of software.
Also: I just switched to Nixos and now I can actually setup systemd units without wanting to shoot myself in the face. So that’s nice.
You know you can change the hotkeys and window decorations right? That’s the great thing about KDE. You have choices.
Sure, but being good out of the box is very important for normal users. Power users love the crazy customization. Normal people don’t really care.
Fair point, but out of the box KDE has pretty sane defaults these days. It’s a very inoffensive desktop.
I have just a couple customizations that I do immediately on a fresh install, but it certainly wouldn’t kill me to use it as it comes.
I know but I don’t really care whether my OS is good for normal users. In fact the more it is the less I’ll like it.
Normal users love someone taking control and all their data and telling them what’s what. A “Linux for the masses” will be inevitably pure trash, something akin to ChromeOS now (which is kinda already linux for the masses). They literally want all the things we hate. For a company to know everything about them, to take all their data, to tell them what they can do and they can’t so they feel ‘safe’.
As soon as Linux becomes a masses thing, it means lots of money can be made off it, and companies will jump on it to enshittify it as much as they can. So I’m really hoping that “the year of Linux on the desktop” will never happen.
I recently wrote about why the year of Linux might actually be a trap. Most users want control handed to them even if it means giving up their privacy. If Linux goes mainstream, it could lose what makes it special.
https://the.unknown-universe.co.uk/privacy-security/year-of-linux-trap/
Whether or not Linux becomes a mainstream option and loses much of its appeal in the process creating a schism between ‘sanitised linux’ and ‘free rebel’ linux with the latter being sidelined because of various attestation and verification schemes stopping you from actually doing anything useful with your free-rebel computer; doesn’t sound like it would actually make a huge difference.
If all the recent rise in popularity and usability and adoption of linux stopped dead in its tracks today or even went backwards, and also the dystopian future you fear about mandatory face scans becomes reality, those using linux will get sidelined and put in to a ‘digital exile’; if insetad it does continue to rise and erode some of the share of desktops that windows enjoys and you end up with the ‘sanitised linux’ you’re afraid of causing a divide amongst the linux community, then you just get the same outcome for those that refuse to use the sanitised versions and insist on their ‘free rebel’ versions.
Either outcome, doesn’t sound like it’s any worse the other really, but at least in the interim, greater mainstream embrace of linux would be better and even in long term where it might get sanitised, it could still be a better outcome depending upon just how badly compromised the ‘sanitised linux’ actually turns out to be.
In the end, this sanitised linux could be worse than windows and ultimately the situation wouldn’t really have changed much since at that point ‘free-rebel’ linux basically just becomes what was always ‘linux’ and ‘sanitised linux’ is just ‘something else, not really linux in most people’s estimation.’ The two scenarios look kinda the same to me.
Better still, in the Nix world there’s https://github.com/nix-community/plasma-manager which allows you to set up all the settings exactly once, and then auto-apply them on all the machines!
I tend to just copy my dotfiles over between machines. I’m not a fan of declarative management and even less of immutable OS’es.
I use chezmoi and chezmoi_modify_manager to keep my dotfiles (including some KDE configs) in a Git repo, and it works well enough.
I’m a huge fan of tiling window managers, and i3 is still the king of getting the hell out of my way and letting me work/play. That’s the beauty of Linux systems, everyone gets to set things up how they want.
I was a longtime KDE user, but the lack of reasonable trackpad gestures drove me up the wall on my laptop, so I’ve been using niri+noctalia for the last couple months. It just feels so right, it’s lovely. Still some edge cases, but overall just so good.
Steam has reported record number of linux users in their os survey! I made the switch this year too!
Same. I’m enjoying the experience. I was surprised how seamless it went.
Why I still drive a Ferrari instead of the poop smelling ice cream truck.
Windows 11 is less of a poop smelling ice cream truck and more of a Kaiser’s Coffee Shop van. And you ain’t in the driver’s seat.
“coffee, black”
“Apologies, all our coffee come with creamer loaded with corn syrup. We’ve got matcha though! Also with corn syrup.”
And yet you use & support systemd…
Omg shut up. Nobody controls Systemd, it’s open source.
Uh, the systemd devs do.
You can also replace individual components. It’s basically a bunch of binaries using an API.
Do you have any actual problems with systemd, or do you just want SysV init scripts to stick around forever?
Maybe systemd isn’t the best, but it’s way better than a bunch of mostly unstructured shell scripts, and more secure (it’s pretty easy to reduce privileges, sandbox the filesystem, restrict syscalls, etc per service just by editing the unit file)
Personally, my problem with systemd is that it’s slowly trying to take over everything it possibly can, and be as hard to remove as possible.
It’s not “so you just think it’s all a single binary!”. No, I’m 100% aware it’s multiple binaries. The problem is that it’s a single project, and that’s too much power to give to one single project.
“oh but you can swap out the individual parts!” Sure. For SOME of them. Until you swap out the systemd init and suddenly have to relearn a shitton of completely random other stuff because systemd was doing a boatload of other things. Might as well get that out of the way early and use normal other projects for the other stuff, and also ditching the init system can’t hurt just to reduce their stranglehold.
Also OpenRC might be worth looking into. “systemd or Old™ Nasty™ sysv scripts” is a false dichotomy, openrc’s init scripts are declarative like systemd units (and it also supports sysv scripts). There are also totally different init systems (but we don’t know much about them, we started with systemd and then jumped to openrc recently).
– Frost
