- 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.
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 use chezmoi and chezmoi_modify_manager to keep my dotfiles (including some KDE configs) in a Git repo, and it works well enough.
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’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.