Dear TechXero,
Just a quick introduction of myself to you & your merry band of happy followers (I won't bore you my whole life history, just a quick
summary of the last 30 years or so! - yes, I'm pretty old in the tooth now I guess!)
I've been interested (maybe even obsessed?) with all things electronic from a very early age. From the moment I 'discovered' the
power of electrickery by inserting a metal coat hanger into the nearest wall socket, I was hooked! (or should that be - shocked?)
After playing around with numerous electronic toys & games/consoles (too many to mention), I then focussed my pubescent attention on
various Home Computers. Among the PC's that I've owned over the years are (in no particular order) from the humble Sinclair ZX80,
ZX81, Spectrum 48k, Amstrad CPC464 (Green CRT!), Amstrad CPC6128 (Colour CRT!), Acorn Atom, Atari 400, Atari 800, Atari ST 1040ST,
VIC-20, C64, Video Genie - (TRS-80 Clone), Dragon 64, Mattel Aquarius, Memotech MTX500, Oric Atmos, Texas Instruments TI99/4A
plus various IBM PC clones & many Apple PC's/Hackintosh's/Laptops as well as Win based PC's & Laptops. (phew!, didn't realise that I had owned
so many!).
And then there's all the numerous dedicated gaming consoles! - sadly I never kept any of them (which is a shame as they go for silly £££ these days!)
Anyway, after working as a printer/photocopier engineer for many years & playing around with PC's as a hobby) I finally got a break as a PC Hardware
Engineer, and have been messing around with 'puters to this day! (much to the dismay of my long suffering wife! - I think we have computers
and/or Tablets in EVERY room of the house AND garden - except maybe the W.C! - but I'm working on that!)
Anyway, back to the subject in hand. I became rapidly disillusioned with the Wintel/Apple products (walled garden) monopoly in the last 10 years
or so and have experimented with various forms of alternative OS's (such as the massively underrated IBM/Warp OS2/Warp 3/4) as well as the
numerous flavours of Linux, to the point where I almost exclusively run various distro's as my go-to daily driver. In fact, I only run Windoze
(8/10 & now 11) to offer support to my existing customer support base.
I probably download & try out at least one new Distro release a month, and have been trying to stick to a maximum of two/three permanent Linux
based distros for reliable day-to-day use. Up until recently (like before Covid kicked in), I was mainly using Debian/Ubuntu based distros for daily use,
but I have been giving more and more time to installing & testing Arch based Distros as they just seem to be a better fit for me, as I seem to have
an uncanny ability to be able to totally break a Distro, sometimes within a few hours! (obviously a debian base is extremely solid option, but as soon
as I start radically customising my desktop interface and/or adding bleeding edge packages, things can start to fall apart VERY quickly indeed!)
I have found that Arch's bleeding edge design (via the AUR repos) along with constant rolling updates system has led to a faster AND more stable
system overall.
Out of all the many Arch based Distros that I have tried so far, THREE of them stand out for me.
1. XeroLinux (of course!)
2. Garuda Linux (which I believe you are a fan of?)
3. Mabox Linux (best Openbox Distro EVER IMHO!)
At this stage, I think XeroLinux will be my daily OS due to the AMAZING work that you have put into making it the joy that it is! Truly, I am AMAZED
at how ONE PERSON could have produced such a polished product in such a short space of time! I'm not surprised that you recently announced that
you'd be dropping the xfce & gnome flavours! I'm just glad that you didn't announce that you'd no longer making ANY more releases and that you'll
continue to support the KDE version (as it was the best version IMHO anyway!)
Finally, I just wanted to thank you again from the heart of my bottom for all the work that you've put in already, and wish you all the best for the future.
You're a bloody LEGEND my friend!!!
Regards & much respect,
slickmrick.
Just a quick introduction of myself to you & your merry band of happy followers (I won't bore you my whole life history, just a quick
summary of the last 30 years or so! - yes, I'm pretty old in the tooth now I guess!)
I've been interested (maybe even obsessed?) with all things electronic from a very early age. From the moment I 'discovered' the
power of electrickery by inserting a metal coat hanger into the nearest wall socket, I was hooked! (or should that be - shocked?)
After playing around with numerous electronic toys & games/consoles (too many to mention), I then focussed my pubescent attention on
various Home Computers. Among the PC's that I've owned over the years are (in no particular order) from the humble Sinclair ZX80,
ZX81, Spectrum 48k, Amstrad CPC464 (Green CRT!), Amstrad CPC6128 (Colour CRT!), Acorn Atom, Atari 400, Atari 800, Atari ST 1040ST,
VIC-20, C64, Video Genie - (TRS-80 Clone), Dragon 64, Mattel Aquarius, Memotech MTX500, Oric Atmos, Texas Instruments TI99/4A
plus various IBM PC clones & many Apple PC's/Hackintosh's/Laptops as well as Win based PC's & Laptops. (phew!, didn't realise that I had owned
so many!).
And then there's all the numerous dedicated gaming consoles! - sadly I never kept any of them (which is a shame as they go for silly £££ these days!)
Anyway, after working as a printer/photocopier engineer for many years & playing around with PC's as a hobby) I finally got a break as a PC Hardware
Engineer, and have been messing around with 'puters to this day! (much to the dismay of my long suffering wife! - I think we have computers
and/or Tablets in EVERY room of the house AND garden - except maybe the W.C! - but I'm working on that!)
Anyway, back to the subject in hand. I became rapidly disillusioned with the Wintel/Apple products (walled garden) monopoly in the last 10 years
or so and have experimented with various forms of alternative OS's (such as the massively underrated IBM/Warp OS2/Warp 3/4) as well as the
numerous flavours of Linux, to the point where I almost exclusively run various distro's as my go-to daily driver. In fact, I only run Windoze
(8/10 & now 11) to offer support to my existing customer support base.
I probably download & try out at least one new Distro release a month, and have been trying to stick to a maximum of two/three permanent Linux
based distros for reliable day-to-day use. Up until recently (like before Covid kicked in), I was mainly using Debian/Ubuntu based distros for daily use,
but I have been giving more and more time to installing & testing Arch based Distros as they just seem to be a better fit for me, as I seem to have
an uncanny ability to be able to totally break a Distro, sometimes within a few hours! (obviously a debian base is extremely solid option, but as soon
as I start radically customising my desktop interface and/or adding bleeding edge packages, things can start to fall apart VERY quickly indeed!)
I have found that Arch's bleeding edge design (via the AUR repos) along with constant rolling updates system has led to a faster AND more stable
system overall.
Out of all the many Arch based Distros that I have tried so far, THREE of them stand out for me.
1. XeroLinux (of course!)
2. Garuda Linux (which I believe you are a fan of?)
3. Mabox Linux (best Openbox Distro EVER IMHO!)
At this stage, I think XeroLinux will be my daily OS due to the AMAZING work that you have put into making it the joy that it is! Truly, I am AMAZED
at how ONE PERSON could have produced such a polished product in such a short space of time! I'm not surprised that you recently announced that
you'd be dropping the xfce & gnome flavours! I'm just glad that you didn't announce that you'd no longer making ANY more releases and that you'll
continue to support the KDE version (as it was the best version IMHO anyway!)
Finally, I just wanted to thank you again from the heart of my bottom for all the work that you've put in already, and wish you all the best for the future.
You're a bloody LEGEND my friend!!!
Regards & much respect,
slickmrick.