Hardware and Software

While mainly for my own records (I re-install my OS frequently), I am including this here as a list of software I find useful or interesting. As many of these are independent projects, if you choose to use any of these, use them at your own risk.

As of August, 2024, I've given up entirely on Windows, which has become increasingly user-hostile in previous years. A particular annoyance is the habit Microsoft has gotten into of rebooting my system without my permission. I've had overnight jobs running (rendering, etc.) which have been completely ruined by this ugly choice. Because my system is really old, it does not support TPM, which makes any upgrade from Windows 10 to 11 impossible. Beyond this, Mictosoft's willingness to push bloatware on its desktop as well as so-called "Recommendations" indicates that they intend to push ads to the desktop. While much of this can be disabled, currently, like the forced reboots, I do not foresee a future in which Microsoft will make this optional. I have had enough.

I spent the 1990s running Windows 3.1 through Windows 2000, and switched to Linux around the time Windows XP became available. I spent most of the 2000s running Gentoo. Later, I switched to Debian. A deficit of important applications led to switching back to Windows 7, which I ran for most of the 2010s, while maintaining several headless Linux boxes for various tasks. As of 2022, and one forced reboot (and lost work) too many, I am back on Linux.

As I was in a bit of a froth/temper tantrum when I installed Linux, I stuck with the first distribution which worked "out of the box," and that wound up being Kubuntu.

My current desktop / daily driver is now 13 years old. It will need a replacement shortly. I will reassess which distribution I run then.