Migration process

[carey]

My first experience with an electronic gaming system was an ATARI in 1990(+/-). Then, between 1994 and 1999, I was exposed to computers and gaming systems from all the major companies then.

In 2000, I got my first PC. Microsoft Windows 98SE was the OS. Internet came a year later. I destroyed that OS with file compression and cruft removal. The wrong files were removed, so for years it was functioning sub-par. When it cost $4000 to get a replacement 98SE then I thought it was time to find a replacement.

First searches yielded BeOS. That was the most memorable experience of how good an OS should be. For the hardware that worked, they over-performed. Sound was surround, graphics was extremely accelerated, 3D was smooth. So, that means I should search for similar?

Fellow Jamaicans introduced Linux in about 2002. The first was Mandrake 8.0. The fun began. ADSL was just getting mainstream. Glitches in the Conexant Agere/Lucent modem driver for dial-up was giving me download speeds close to a 256Kbps DSL connection. That was a connection that should have been at least 4x my bandwidth. Just starting Linux and already it is fun.

The downloads were large both for distros and packages. RPM sucked. Debian was a puzzle. Even with Jigdo. The big 3 formats were RPM, DEB and TGZ. So, TGZ was the choice. For years I stuck to Slackware-based distros: Vector, Zenwalk, Slax, DSL, Feather.

Then during the Xorg vs X wars, I switched to BSD. FreeBSD images were huge and took long to download, then for some reason Windows always corrupted the downloads. It was gobbling up all my income at internet cafes. OpenBSD was rumored to be security-specific and not for the casual desktop user. So, I went NetBSD for 3 whole years -- from version 4.6(?) to version 5.2.

During this time, the computers were dying from a combination of JPS-induced damage and failing parts. I went through 3 desktops. Then it was time for laptops. NetBSD became rocket science (even though the Pkgsrc was the best package management and kernel config was so easy, in my opinion). The NetBSD community was also the most friendly that time. They wrote drivers for my devices upon request, I was able to give feedback directly to developers on anything, no question was stupid.

Then came graphics-accelerated requirements (video editing, games, remote desktop). It was back to Linux. UFO: AI only worked on Linux properly; Handbrake and DeVeDe required Linux; ssh -X and VNC worked best on Linux. KMS made things even better.

Zenwalk felt too much like a babysitter, so it was time to find a new host. Puppy began experiments to be compatible with everything, but they were just too experimental. I needed something that was as close to vanilla as possible and allowed me to cherry-pick and be as minimal as possible. Enter Arch.

I have been using Arch for everything, blindly, even against the recommendation of mentors. I only touched Windows when I didn't own the machine. Thing is Arch is a rolling release and rolling stones will fall off high places and break into pebbles. On Arch you spend most of your time tweaking. It didn't come close to Gentoo or LFS but it is what you make it.

Now, I don't have a working machine and the weather forecast in *nix world is very overcast. Things are not going KISS anymore. Systemd was just the beginning, though it was a very acceptable beginning.

It is now time to find a new host. I think my next one will be OpenBSD. It is just that simple. In my mind Plan 9/Inferno is an ideal choice, but it is too hard to go to. So the choice is OpenBSD and OpenBSD does not use shortcuts because all the roads go directly from A->B. That is what Windows doesn't give me, what Linux used to give me, and what *BSD always tried to give me.

PS. I really hoped HAIKU would turn out like BeOS. It seems more like just another Linux distro the more time passes.
PS2. Why not stick to Windows? Analogy: You have a companion that does nothing but frame you, give you bad rep and encourages your enslavement for years. Stick with that companion or gut it?

[kknight]

Have you tried Slax? It's modular and doesn't have a lot of bloat. PCBSD is a nice BSD flavour you can try as well. I would go with Slax first still. http://www.slax.org http://www.pcbsd.org/

[carey]

Have you tried Slax? It's modular and doesn't have a lot of bloat. PCBSD is a nice BSD flavour you can try as well. I would go with Slax first still. http://www.slax.org http://www.pcbsd.org/

I forgot about Slax. I had tried all the live distros. There was http://www.linux.org before http://www.distrowatch.com. Linux.org had a properly classified list of known distributions of all architecture, language and purpose, back then. I used to use Slax as a replacement for damaged Windows on clients at work in '05. Can't fool some of the people most of the time. They just had to prove that they were not using Windows... Slax was just Slackware Live to me.

PCBSD let me down. It was PCBSD 1.0, if I recall. It was just released. I was trying to convince an acquaintance that his cafe would benefit from converting to sturdier OS that would allow for the carelessness of his clients. It took me about 4 hours to install, update and config that 1 system (GUI installers are uberlame). I showed him the ropes, left the system running and by morning when I went back the system had died... It was not booting. Seemed to had been corrupted by some rogue update. I installed and did it again, only to see it break again. I didn't know IRC then. FreeBSD is not as sturdy as they purport it to be.

As I said, OpenBSD has a reputation to uphold and things are so simple. The only problem is bleeding edge is not supported. There is no latest golang package, nor any experimental package that would introduce instability. You want that, you better make a jail or something.

I was discussing some of this on IRC last night. I am going to put Arch in a VM on the Windows on this laptop I just got, and install OpenBSD separately. OpenBSD does not do VM well, plus it works better without a simulated layer beneath it (sndio, pf etc.).

I don't know what the status is now, but Tinycore Linux is awesome!

I still haven't been able to get Foresight Linux working. The installer is buggy -- an old version of Anaconda. I was hoping they would be able to remove that garbage. Conary is a very different beast when it comes to package management. I only wish I could experience it instead of observe it in action.

[kknight]

Foresight reminds me of Linux Mint. I have tried Tinycore before...It's fast....Love the modularity of Slax