A new progress report on living with (Net)BSD, with some artistry, too.
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@elebertus I like the analogy because it can be stretched further: in some places, in some circumstances, it is easier to be vegan, because it is common and understood. And there are many reasons why people choose one diet and not the other: religion, upbringing, ethics, environment concerns, health concerns, simple preference. I think there are similarly many reasons to avoid LLMs in their varieties.
Additionally, I like that "vegan" is a non-negative descriptor. It's more than just "meat-free" or "anti-meat". This makes me think that like-minded people could benefit from a descriptor that is not "No-AI" or "AI-free". I have not found such a word yet, admittedly
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@csgraves I have WiFi working quite reliably through USB WiFi dongles. For a couple of my laptops I'm considering getting a replacement for the internal WiFi board.
I'm not sure if modern Minecraft works on BSD, but Java version should. There are open source alternatives, too, though I have not tried them in a long while.
As for Ardour... It is packaged, and I had it starting a few times, but it is very crash-happy on my setup for some reason. Considering that it has slop in it now, I'm more interested in trying LMMS. LMMS is far more stable, but I have not figured out why my MIDI gear doesn't work with it.
For now I'm using Audacity, it seems, but I should try and compile Tenacity as a slop-free alternative.
@nina_kali_nina dammit, didn't know about Ardour. LMMS isn't useful for me, as I already have the midi stuff covered, so Audacity or something.
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@nina_kali_nina dammit, didn't know about Ardour. LMMS isn't useful for me, as I already have the midi stuff covered, so Audacity or something.
@csgraves I suppose one option - that I'm seriously considering - is using obsolete software on period-correct hardware, just without any internet access. It isn't a way forward, but it can postpone the pain somewhat
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My particular computing needs are complicated: I browse web, I play and make games, I explore old software, I draw, and I make music. On top of that, I do some writing, I work with spreadsheets, and of course I hang out with my friends and family online.
All those things, obviously, can be done on NetBSD. All those things come with some friction. Resolving this friction is generally highly rewarding.
Among recent examples:
- figuring out how to have graphical acceleration on my computer, so video playback is very smooth;
- configuring my desktop in such a way that my most commonly used programs (terminal, file browser, taskbar) are LLM-free;
- hacking around xf86-input-tablet driver to make my tablet work in NetBSD.
All of those taught me a lot about my computer. They were not as simple as I hoped, but they gave me a bit of agency over my computing needs.
🧵 3/?
@nina_kali_nina Wow, ROX... Haven't seen that in ages. Used it around 2000 when I dabbled with 0install too.
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@lilyyllyyllyly I haven't explored the topic properly yet, but I have successfully ran some XNA games (Kitsune Tails), some RenPy games, some Love2D games. I have really decent Dosbox-X and basic Wine (need to experiment with it more). There are other emulators in pkgsrc, the newest platforms seem to be Wii and DS, if I'm not mistaken.
@lilyyllyyllyly oh, also, I forgot that I used Debian 11 in a hypervisor from where I ran Steam+Proton okay-ish. Obviously suboptimal
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@nina_kali_nina Wow, ROX... Haven't seen that in ages. Used it around 2000 when I dabbled with 0install too.
@dwardoric It ROXs!
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Speaking of the computing needs: as you can see, I almost sorted out the drawing part of it. I have GNU IMP, Krita, and even pre-genAI LibreSprite (I needed to write four patches so it'd compile and won't crash; perhaps, I should package it, or at least document for someone).
With my music-making, things are not as good yet. Among the applications that reliably work, I have Audacity, timidity (MIDI player) and XMMS. The LMMS DAW, for some reason, isn't very stable, and it refuses to talk to any of MIDI devices. I still don't have a solution for editing MIDI just yet. At least music tracker applications should work.
But you know what, having XMMS available is a big heartwarming thing, I missed this little gadget on my desktop. And Audacity is still better than nothing at all.
🧵 4/?
@nina_kali_nina grafx2 -
@csgraves I suppose one option - that I'm seriously considering - is using obsolete software on period-correct hardware, just without any internet access. It isn't a way forward, but it can postpone the pain somewhat
@nina_kali_nina for sure. If only Haiku were more developed than it is now, I would totally just run that. Still might try.
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Another major computing need that I (and most others) have is modern internet. Things are not looking super great here.
For now, I'm using a fork/LTS release of Firefox. How long until it stops being supported, and the only option for a browser that can open modern web would be LLM-tainted one? Probably a month or so at best (and it's possible that the one I have is already tainted).
Using an outdated browser is a security risk I'm not willing to take.
So, I'll try to use more of sm0l web - Gemini, Gopher, no-js web. It's not the same.
I probably will still have to compromise on my "LLM boycott" and use a tainted web browser. I don't know, honestly. Sorry, I wish I knew what to do about it.
Ah, that was quite a long rant!
Thanks for reading. I guess what I wanted to say is that things aren't too bad on this side. Could've been better, but I'm managing to scrape by, making choices that I find important.
🧵 6/6
@nina_kali_nina firefox is LLM tainted because LLVM (rustc) is LLM tainted -
@wyatt I suppose I should be able to shape it into an editor I want it to be. Out of the box, it is very much not, to the point where I think it'd be easier for me to make yet another tiny graphical editor than to get used to grafx2. But it is a good editor, can't argue with that!
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@wyatt I suppose I should be able to shape it into an editor I want it to be. Out of the box, it is very much not, to the point where I think it'd be easier for me to make yet another tiny graphical editor than to get used to grafx2. But it is a good editor, can't argue with that!
@nina_kali_nina i consider it very similar to deluxepaint and thus familiar to me
also if wine works EDGE is a nice editor i've talked about before -
@rfnix I started preparing for the NetBSD move when systemd became ensloppified and the Linux kernel mail list didn't show much concern about it. At this point I knew that things are going to be "interesting".
Frankly speaking, things are in a bit of a dangerous position. Well, "a bit" might be an understatement.
One can't have a modern operating system without a modern compiler. Both LLVM and GCC are embracing LLMs (to a different degree). Not sure what's going to replace them, if anything.
There are other parts of the stack that are in a similar position... Sigh.
@nina_kali_nina I share the feelings, including the uncertainty about what we're going to do about all that.
I'm telling myself it will let us keep the "fun" factor of building things on constrained resources and software without any LLM involvement in its development process - but being realistic for anything else that isn't "computers" at its core it will likely be too time consuming to avoid entirely. For example I do a lot of photography and music, and at some point I want to stop tinkering with the software and actually create something with it.
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@nina_kali_nina I share the feelings, including the uncertainty about what we're going to do about all that.
I'm telling myself it will let us keep the "fun" factor of building things on constrained resources and software without any LLM involvement in its development process - but being realistic for anything else that isn't "computers" at its core it will likely be too time consuming to avoid entirely. For example I do a lot of photography and music, and at some point I want to stop tinkering with the software and actually create something with it.
@nina_kali_nina (so far my entire picture collection is edited with Darktable, for a more specific example - and they have already started down a dangerous path...)
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A new progress report on living with (Net)BSD, with some artistry, too.
This original illustration is
succubusdaemon. Installed by runningpkg_add succu, and can be started with default settings with/etc/rc.d/succu onestart.She's a bit wonky and rough around the corners, and she looks more like a ghost than a succubus. But she's highly configurable, and her ~source code~ incantation spell is written by a human being and can be understood by a human being as well.
The illustration is a mix of traditional and digital art, and all the digital parts were done on NetBSD 11.
Thread start!
🧵 1/?
@nina_kali_nina I am about to start trying to get NetBSD running on one of my devices (an eeepc 901) so I will have a look through all of your posts later.
FreeBSD apparently allows AI code. NetBSD explicitly does not.
I am not sure what OpenBSD's stance is. -
@nina_kali_nina firefox is LLM tainted because LLVM (rustc) is LLM tainted
@wyatt it should still be possible to build the version I'm on using pre-tainted Rust release, but tainted Rust has been in the pkgsrc since May
Oh, also, I think Firefox itself is tainted.
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@wyatt it should still be possible to build the version I'm on using pre-tainted Rust release, but tainted Rust has been in the pkgsrc since May
Oh, also, I think Firefox itself is tainted.
@nina_kali_nina you know as well as i do that firefox in 1 year won't build with pre-'tainted' rust versions anymore -
Speaking of the computing needs: as you can see, I almost sorted out the drawing part of it. I have GNU IMP, Krita, and even pre-genAI LibreSprite (I needed to write four patches so it'd compile and won't crash; perhaps, I should package it, or at least document for someone).
With my music-making, things are not as good yet. Among the applications that reliably work, I have Audacity, timidity (MIDI player) and XMMS. The LMMS DAW, for some reason, isn't very stable, and it refuses to talk to any of MIDI devices. I still don't have a solution for editing MIDI just yet. At least music tracker applications should work.
But you know what, having XMMS available is a big heartwarming thing, I missed this little gadget on my desktop. And Audacity is still better than nothing at all.
🧵 4/?
@nina_kali_nina "pre-GenAI libresprite", things I didn't want to hear, but am now glad to know. Which version is pre?
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@nina_kali_nina you know as well as i do that firefox in 1 year won't build with pre-'tainted' rust versions anymore
@wyatt I mean, Firefox ESR 153 has .claude and .agents/skills in it, too
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@nina_kali_nina I am about to start trying to get NetBSD running on one of my devices (an eeepc 901) so I will have a look through all of your posts later.
FreeBSD apparently allows AI code. NetBSD explicitly does not.
I am not sure what OpenBSD's stance is.@the_wub OpenBSD doesn't allow AI code based on the legality/license grounds, it seems. Which makes it a bit dangerous, I feel
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@wyatt I mean, Firefox ESR 153 has .claude and .agents/skills in it, too
@nina_kali_nina i'm running 139 still but i'm sure that'll piss me off whenever i finally need to build a new version
