I'm not ashamed of not writing for over a month here but DISTRO HOPING
Estimated read time: 7 mins
Note: This is kind of like a stream of thought. It's a mess and I'm thinking of this as something rather to be written than read. So I'm sorry if this comes across as a mess and I go off the tangent. Thanks for your comprehension.
This is something that needed to get out, in the public. A .txt wouldn't have been enough. It needs to be here.
Also I'm including now read time.
I know, I know.
I'm not obligated to write, it's something I do because I wish to. Nobody forces me to do this, I chose this. I don't always like it but I don't like not doing it. There is no shame in doing it or not. Yada yada yada.
But I feel like distro hoping honestly. I finally settled into my config with endeavor and niri and zen browser and other nice things. I like this. I didn't feel the need to jump again in a long while. But I remember, a very long period of distro hoping from my teens to about a year, so maybe like 6 or 7 years? Wow, that's a lot now that I think about it.
Distro hoping is a state of mind where you keep jumping from linux distributions from linux distributions for a myriad of reasons. There is linux and there are many operative systems that distribute linux at their core to power it. These OS's are called linux distros. I jumped from ubuntu to debian, stayed in debian for a long time. I used solus and I loved it, I loved budgie, but then it got deleted of the face of the earth and I jumped to openSUSE. I used mint, pop_os, manjaro, arch, nobara, fedora, then solus again after it came back but it wasn't the same, or I wasn't the same. Whatever.
I tried a weird linux distribution that I couldn't install that was immutable and was based on debian and used their own UI framework. I don't remember its name but if anyone knows it I would really really love to know because I've left with the curiosity. I also tried puppy linux.
It's easy to say 'if you know, you know' but I must try to verbalize; or to mentally verbalize enough to put into words, because something inside feels really familiar right now. Specially regarding writing here in this hellscape* called the internet and using many many other things. Besides, I think this will sound familiar to anyone.
*Altough this hellscape called bear is a nicer hellscape than other, literal, hellscapes on the internet.
There is this unease. A kind of restlessness, a ring that quite doesn't fit but it could. A two week minecraft world that you know could be the forever world but before you open the program you already know you are in another throwaway world; and another throwaway distro. You come, you marvel at the amazing feats of engineering and design that makes this possible. You start messing with it. You play with it. You break it, you fix it, you tune it like a instrument until it's a very sharp axe capable of cutting through anything like butter.
But still, there is always something. You have options. You are even capable of doing the thing yourself if there aren't options and you have plenty of time. You don't know what you are searching for but it's not here. Or maybe you want to see more, or something different. You can always start another minecraft world and put something besides badseed, but for some reason you never stick to the same world, even if sticking with it but moving 1000 steps in any direction is functionally the same result. You can always just "factory reset" any OS if you are dedicated enough, or power your way into weird combinations if you want to. It's fun to rice.
What a funny word. Rice. Granear o tunear. Something about building and tuning your OS feels like frying cut onion and garlic, including the smell and sound. Building a house you will never live in. I guess I was comfortable ricing so much because I knew I wouldn't stay long.
I don't know what changed this last time. As mentioned earlier, I'm using my current config for over a year now. And I didn't force myself to do it! I didn't "enough is enough" myself into staying here. I just didn't feel like moving. I installed endeavorOS, which is basically arch with a lot of goodies. I got a background I didn't change, a task-bar-thing I designed with waybar that I did once and never touched again. A niri config mostly untouched after a traumatic rice in hyprland. And here I am. There are quirks and weird stuff all over the place but I don't know why I didn't bother to change any of it. I know that earlier I would have drilled into them as if I couldn't live without fixing it first, but I didn't.
I won't be delusional, I will jump distro sometime in the future. But so far I don't feel like it. I can't tell if I'll do it sooner or later, or later than later. But I'm kinda ok now.
Writing this blog on the internet is something I have been doing for a while now - although using the word "have been" is way too generous for a month-long fall-of-the-face-of-the-earth. But this unease of wanting to jump ship. This restlessness that I would rather taste cold water and abandon ship rather than staying in whatever hellscape I made on my own. It's here again! I love it. I loved trying many distros before, why wouldn't I love trying many blogs?
I mean, it's annoying, for a start. Specially now that it's online. I'm annoyed by the many accounts and pages that would require. I would learn a lot doing this, about the functional working of the internet and so on. My guess is that this is because I started thinking in meta terms. God damn my mind!
There is only the blog and that's that. Any place, from Medium to mataroa is enough for someone that just wants to write things that are read on the internet. I thought that's what I wanted, but this desire to jump ship tells me I lied to myself. Thinking on meta. Not thinking about writing in a blog but about blogging itself. About being a blogger rather than doing the writing and posting whatever comes.
The emotion faded away. I didn't post for a long while because I didn't feel like it. There is this unease in my chest still because the cold water is calling me, time to jump ship and find another. But I won't because the bother of having more accounts is greater than literally wiping the hdd clean and starting anew. But if I don't, then I will stay with this knot in my chest and I won't be happy here. Sounds like the lamest hero's journey there is. Except I'm no hero and the journey is just some buttons.
I jumped out of windows because the troubles to keep using it were greater than starting from scratch. That was years ago, I wonder how is it now. I hope windows is doing ok.
Anyway. I didn't know better before. I would have been settled in windows if I didn't know there was another way. There were - and are - many other ways. The knowledge came and I started to doubt. The many ways of blogging came and I have doubts if I want to keep using bear. I like bear. I could like any of those better. Or at least know.
I mean this in the best way possible, but I'm kinda frustrated that bear is a fair and decent platform because now I don't have any push to break through and discover the other platforms (And to make things worse, it's also my first contact with blogging!). I love that bear is not falling to enshitifaction, but please, add unskippable ads and daily log ins. Do it for the plot.
God damn it. I lost the plot of what I wanted to say again. Popcorn, I get something written here and another thing comes up. Pop pop pop.
Why is this hard, now that I think about it? I think I care about privacy but I'm scared of saying so because I know I'm not doing enough. I have a gmail after all... I still do obfuscate all I do though, but there is always someone more serious about it. There is always more I could do instead. Using gpl drivers, sending deletion emails to data hoarders, self hosting email, you name it. I guess I'm feeling like this because I don't do as much as I care or feel like I should care. Point aside.
Why is this hard? You know what, I'm starting a substack. This is ridiculous. I don't know why I didn't do this before. At least I will know the place there. Find me there, cringe is over, I'll not abandon here but I'm there too now. Good night. Maybe tomorrow I'll experiment with the style on the page.
P.S. I find it interesting all the praise around blogging in bear that I see in the featured tab on discovery bear. But honestly, it's warranted, bear is good. I like it and I like the weird community thing that happened around here, even if I see myself sometimes wishing it all faded away sometimes. (Not accurate to what I want to say. I guess It's natural to feel like that to any community from time to time.)
P.P.S. I don't want to do a disservice to distro hopping. It's fun. It's also a great learning experience to say the least. But it's also greatly annoying to look from outside so you'll never sympathize with another distro hopper beyond an "I'm sorry". And from the inside it can range from fun hobby project to hell and slippery slope to madness. Distro hopping is cookie clicker.
P.P.P.S. I don't know where to put this so for the sake of completeness, I'm not running away from the internet. I like short form content but I wish it didn't literally root the brain. I like sharing images and seeing number go up. I like the contact with friends. Cookie clicker. I like the accessibility. I like engagement and engaging. It's just that... I wish for a better internet, not for a step back, and so much of the indie scene feels like that. I'm running away from real hellscapes like facebook or X - formerly known as twitter. But that's the first step. The second step was always me. Learning that technology is not inherently good or bad but what people make it and do with it. I hope I can be part of the building of a better internet. For now, I'm still happy of seeing number go up. Cookie cliker.