There’s a scene in the documentary Open Ocean when Spanish sailor Didac Costa is repairing his laptop’s battery. There he is, performing surgery on his computer’s guts while his boat slams into waves, competing in the toughest endurance race humanity has invented so far, the Vendée Globe. More people have been to space than have survived, never mind completed, the Vendée Globe.
I like that idea. Yeah, he’s getting shit done, running on fumes of remaining perseverance to keep himself and his gear in one piece for 100 days of isolation in the literal middle of nowhere.
I like that idea, but it’s not me. At least, that’s not how I use my laptop.
OpenBSD ftw
For my daily personal driver, I’d been using OpenBSD for about 10 years. OpenBSD’s simplicity and cohesiveness drew me in. And it didn’t hurt that it still has an indie vibe to it that someone like Costa might appreciate.
Practicality overrules delusion
Then I jumped from permanent employee-hood to freelance consulting. I was on my own, just me and OpenBSD to tack into entrepreneurial headwinds.
It wasn’t a practical decision. To help my clients, I needed (needed!) to use commercial software. I was forced (forced!) to sometimes use Windows.
Yeah, there are workarounds that let me keep using OpenBSD. I’m not going to link to them here because it doesn’t matter. My time is valuable to my clients, I don’t have time for chasing workarounds on the interwebs.
I ended up with two laptops. One runs Windows and the other ran OpenBSD:
- Work only: For all its opaqueness, bloat, and uncontrolled creepiness, Windows just works for when a client project needs it. I can use the commercial anti-productivity suite while yammering away with my Bluetooth headset. Unfortunately, I was stuck using Windows for Docker, because Docker doesn’t support OpenBSD.
- Work and personal: OpenBSD had all the things I prefer working with. Unlike Windows, it’s transparent, lean, and hostile to software that even thinks of threatening me.
So the time came for me to decide. Instead of continuing to enjoy using OpenBSD, I decided to get more billable work done with Debian Linux.
Why Debian? Convenience and familiarity. It’s the first Linux I ever used, back in the 1990s. I’ve tinkered with it off and on since then with Raspberry Pi and introducing my father to Ubuntu. And it’s well supported and has countless packages, Debian and third party.
What I gained with Linux
- Bluetooth: A wireless headset and mouse are convenient to use. Just turn them on and go. OpenBSD doesn’t support Bluetooth.
- Docker: Supported.
- Familiarity: All the software I used on OpenBSD is available in Debian.
- Speed: I don’t have metrics, but things are noticeably snappier, like loading web pages, scrolling in LibreOffice, and booting.
Bottom line: I get the “mostly works for what I need it to do” feeling about it.
What is a pain with Linux
- Managing Wifi connections. Geez Louise. Managing Wifi connections on OpenBSD is stupid easy. Add a single line to a single file, restart the interface. The champagne hits the bow, the boat leaves the dock. Linux has too many ways to manage wifi connections. I settled on Network Manager. It’s not an easy piece of kit to learn but it seems to be the most popular one.
- Repeat for Bluetooth, audio, power management, and configuring system services.
- User documentation: I’ll admit that my Linux pains are greatly because of operator error. The truth is that Linux distros tend to have a lot of documentation. But that’s partly because of the breadth of choices you have to contend with. See my point above. The consequence: there’s a lot of content to maintain, it can’t always get maintained.
- Re-installation: It’s the ultimate turn-it-off-turn-it-on-again. I can install or update OpenBSD in about 15 minutes. It’s that simple and fast. Debian’s installer is fancier, but also forces more choices on the user.
Bottom line: The days of OpenBSD’s easily-diagnosed, easily-understood, ruthless simplicity are gone.
Epilogue
It’s been about a month since I switched. I still use two laptops, one still runs Windows and now the other runs Linux. I find myself needing to use the Windows laptop less now, and that’s a good thing.
I miss OpenBSD, but I have no regrets. I’m not enduring the planet’s worst conditions alone with fixed resources, I’m running a business and my clients depend on me to get shit done. For what I do, Linux lets me do that more easily.