[ dbl-edge ] Musings from the chat earlier today

content/en/post/linux-is-a-double-edged-sword/index.md

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+---
+# Documentation: https://wowchemy.com/docs/managing-content/
+
+title: "Linux is a Double Edged Sword"
+subtitle: ""
+summary: ""
+authors: [thomas-e-hansen]
+tags: [misc, rant, linux, os]
+categories: [seed]
+date: 2024-01-16
+lastmod:
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+draft: false
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+---
+
+* Talking with someone about Apple ecosystem, linux, and cross-device
+     integrations in general
+* Made me realise how much of this is actually a pain
+* I usually joke "It's hell, but one of my own creation so I at least know which
+    torture devices there are."
+* Tbf, Arch quite probably has more pains than other distros
+  - Although mine has been surprisingly stable for the past 5 years...
+
+* Configs are cool
+* But configs are also a pain to set up, keep in sync, backup, etc.
+
+* There are wikis for everything
+  - Side-note: if not, SOL
+* But everything I've written have been through a frustration+caffeine fuelled
+    "flow", which produces really good configs and scripts which Just Work.
+  - And should they ever break, going back through all those wiki pages and
+      details will likely be a similar exercise in frustration
+  - If the project even still exists (this has happened! termite, ferdi,
+      woff2ttf, etc)
+
+* Sure, writing these mini-tools, scripts, configs, etc. have taught me an
+    incredible amount about both those concepts and configuring systems in
+    general
+* But increasingly, I also just want a system that works and doesn't require
+    arcane wpa_supplicant runes, which I had to get from a lecturer who also ran
+    Arch, to connect to my university's network. Plug-n-play is really nice,
+    y'know?...
+
+* Can make things very secure: LUKS, PAM, firewalls
+* But I 100% am not an expert on those, even though I dual-boot with Windows
+    with FDE on.
+  - If _that_ breaks, then **by design**, all my data is actually just _gone_.
+
+* "But Tom, make backups!" "Just backup using <insert-favourite-tool-here>"
+* See previous points: the choice and modularity is the beauty of linux, but
+    also, I'd need to sort this out myself, it'd likely be a CLI which I then
+    need to comb through man-pages to find the right incantations for (because
+    everyone seemingly agrees there are no sane defaults), and if I miss any
+    data because I happened to not know that _obviously_ the Linux FSH stores X
+    important thing in Y totally-definitely-obvious path, then I'm once again
+    SOL
+
+* I do genuinely like this OS, and I do genuinely like my machine.
+  - Don't think I couldn't use a tiling VM for work at this point (although,
+      _maybe_ MacOS virtual desktops would be an alright substitute)
+* But I am also increasingly aware that, by intention/design/philosophy, it is
+    all up to me should anything go wrong. And sometimes, you just don't want
+    that.
+