this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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What new OS* have you tried this year? (beehaw.org)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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*or distribution

Having been a (GNU-)Linux user since 2006 (desktop only), I have done what many Linux users have also done: hop around from one thing to another.

That all stopped a few years ago when I decided that I would just stick with Debian. I was happy and comfortable. It worked. I used Stable, Testing, Unstable... no issues.

That is until about 4 months ago I was cleaning and found an older laptop and decided to try something different on it: Alpine Linux.

I even wrote about it on my blog. It was such a nice installation and process that I decided to put it on my main personal laptop.

Since April I have been using Alpine and I must say I am pleased. Differences from one Linux to the next aren't much to write about. With Alpine however, I finally experienced another part of Linux that I hadn't had the opportunity to enjoy: the community.

Package requesting? Easy. Asking for help? No shame. Patience and help provided? Excellent.

None of those comments are to disparage other OS communities. It is simply that I had only ever used popular distros (Debian- and Arch-based) so I never needed to ask for help. Either way, I am still using Alpine.

So, just to repeat the titular question: what have you tried out this year? What are your impressions?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'm not particularly militant about Linux distros, but Alpine is one distro I disapprove of in particular. The reason is that it isn't GNU/Linux -- it strips out (copyleft) GNU libc and coreutils and replaces them with permissively-licensed alternatives. I think that (whether intentional or not) it caters too much to corporate interests that exploit "open source" without truly respecting the users' freedom, and therefore its popularity is potentially harmful to the Free Software movement in the long run.