zerotetration wrote: ↑Thu Aug 23, 2018 3:14 am
Web browser, unix utilities, ssh, printing functions (CUPS), editors (vi), word processing (Lyx or LibreOffice), image manipulation (ImageMagic for automation / CLI or mtPaint for gui). If you are paying attention to this list many / most of these programs are not mainstream GNU/Linux stuff...my personal opinion is that popular GNU programs are often buggy, bloated, messes like (GIMP, for example, or Gnome desktop). I can view PDFs, watch HTML-5 / mpeg4 videos, etc. Every single thing that I need to do in daily computer use is possible, flawlessly, securely, and efficiently on OpenBSD on my X61 or T61.
All of those programs are available on GNU/Linux and many are often installed by default in most distros. I don't know what universe CUPS, vi, ImageMagick, OpenSSH (which of course we have the fine people at OpenBSD to thank for) and most of those wouldn't be considered "mainstream" programs to have on a Linux system. But we can both agree that GNOME is trash, though.
But, I can't really argue with your stance on OpenBSD's greatness considering I have never used a BSD fork, but OpenBSD does look pretty awesome, especially with the focus on security.
Personally I've been using Devuan, Debian, and on systems I just need to make sure work Ubuntu. Pleased with all of them and they are all well maintained. But, I guess the devils advocate parts, huh.
1) TrackPoint is messed up on most distros I have used. Middle-click always randomly pastes things. It's very annoying but I've been too lazy to actually see if there was a fix.
2) Like other people have said, power management. It can get good with tinkering, but by default it's not as nice or as effective as the IBM or Lenovo-provided battery manager utility on Windows.
3) In general, most hardware works out of the box - but with Debian (and the fork Devuan) they do not ship proprietary firmware, so Intel WiFi cards won't work. The firmware is on the non-free repo though. So just an extra step and you have to use wired internet until the, of course.
4) Tearing in my preferred desktop environment, Xfce. This can usually fixed by making sure the built-in compositor is on and vertical sync is enabled, but on older systems (X60 and earlier it looks like) this doesn't seem to work, requiring me to download, configure, and use another compositor like Compton to get a tear-free experience.
5) Spectre vulnerability isn't patched on 32-bit kernel yet, I believe, because it's just not as high of a priority.
And last, it's just general "tinkery" stuff until my entire system is the way I want it. But if you aren't too discriminating, a base install of Debian with whatever desktop environment you want (except GNOME because it's badaroni) will be pleasant and fresh.