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diff --git a/_archive/desktop-unix.md b/_archive/desktop-unix.md index ebfdf81..29784e0 100644 --- a/_archive/desktop-unix.md +++ b/_archive/desktop-unix.md @@ -29,27 +29,38 @@ Capitalism' by Professor Shoshana Zuboff documents in detail unassailable evidence and poignant consequences of the surveillance activities by these corporations. - -The year 2020 transformed my personal computing experience. In March 2020, I -stumbled upon Arch Linux and discovered that I could customize my desktop -environment to look and work any way I liked. I exercised that newfound freedom -to create a Matrix-themed setup: +Conversely, Unix-like operating systems are open to the user to use them as +they deem fit. They do not spy on their users, sell hidden agendas, and some, +like OpenBSD, do not show commercial interests whatsoever. The following is a +screenshot of my custom Arch Linux setup in 2020. It uses X display server and +i3 for window management, Urxvt terminal emulator made translucent with the +help of the Xcompmgr compositor.  -The system employs the X display server and the i3 window manager. The terminal -emulator used is Urxvt. The translucent effect is achieved with the help of the -Xcompmgr compositor. This sort of setup was popular among minimalist Linux -users. - -In February 2024, I switched to an OpenBSD system with Xenocara (the OpenBSD -build of X display server) as the display server and i3 as the window manager: +The following is an equivalent setup on OpenBSD from my 2024 desktop:  -Unlike Linux, OpenBSD includes a coherent desktop environment out of the box. -Except for the window manager, for which I prefer a tiling one, I'm now using -the default OpenBSD setup. For the window manager, I use dwm from the Suckless -team. +This degree of customization is impossible with commercial operating systems. +The operating system vendor sets firm boundaries around how the machine should +be used. As a consequence, the user is forced to suffer slow animations, +arrangement of windows, and blatant infringements of privacy. + +The conceptual elegance and technological superiority of Unix-like operating +systems lie in how programs developed independently come together to accomplish +complex tasks. For instance, to read and reply to an HTML email on OpenBSD, +Mutt, my email client, requests credentials from Pass, which retrieves +credentials and requests GPG to decrypt them. With the decrypted credentials +Mutt fetches the email, opens the Lynx browser to render the HTML content. To +reply, I press Shift+R key, which opens Vim, the text editor I use for all my +text editing tasks. I prepare the reply and press 'y' to dispatch it. + +The entire process of handing control from one program to another is seamless +and instantaneous. The magic is in the fact each of these programs are +developed by different programmers, without so much as exchanging an email to +make sure that they can interoperate. In fact, none of these programs were +designed to interoperate for the specific use case of sending an email. The +interoperability is a direct consequence of how Unix was designed. Files: [dotfiles.tar.gz](dotfiles.tar.gz) |