Step 1: Free the Desktop
Part 2 of the Exit Strategy Series
If you haven’t already read part 1, you can find it here.
In part 1 we discussed a number of modern applications and operating systems that are greatly reducing our freedom as computer users. The makers of these products and services are not only hooking themselves deeper into our experience, allowing them to watch and control what we do, but to take away features and introduce bugs that we never asked for. We actually have a fair number of options when it comes to being ready for a leap of faith away from the major platforms and software makers. Nowhere else in our digital lives do we have more choices than on the desktop — and yes, this includes laptops — so let’s start there.
The Operating System
The ultimate change in your desktop computing experience will obviously come with switching to a new operating system. Sure, most people are running Windows 10 or 11, and the cool kids are running macOS, but there are so many options to take back the power on your machines. In all of these we have options for free software, freeware, or legacy software. Let’s talk about the pros and cons of each for a bit.
Free Software - Linux
Ah Linux. The quintessential free software operating system. It’s not just free as in beer, but also free as in speech. The code is open so people who know a lot more than me can audit its source files and look for things that we wouldn’t want in there. Of course that assumes people are looking over the 8,000,000+ lines of code in the Linux kernel. While that number is staggering and has led to a lot of bloat over the years, it also means that Linux has some of the best hardware support in the alternative OS market. I’ve personally ran Linux distros on Dell, HP, Lenovo, Toshiba, and Apple machines. While there are sometime issues with things like Broadcom wireless cards, it’s usually a pretty quick fix in software to allow the proprietary blobs in the drivers (an ideological matter). With that said, many distros these days just enable them out of the box which detracts from the “free as in speech” idea a bit.
Beyond that, GNU/Linux is overall an extremely stable and secure operating system. It’s not perfect, but no system is. Add to that, most distros and software packages have solid documentation (looking at you Arch Wiki), and vibrant communities of people who help each other out. I know there is the trope of the RTFM guys, but I personally have never met or interacted with one.
As I already mentioned, though, Linux isn’t perfect. The Linux Foundation is heavily invested in — and arguably controlled — by large mega corporations like Microsoft, Google, Oracle, VMware, Sony, Meta (Facebook’s parent company) and many more. In fact, these companies all have seats on the board of directors for the Linux Foundation. So if your goal is to get away from Microsoft and Windows, just remember that they have a good deal of influence on the core of Linux development these days. It’s for this reason that groups like the Free Software Foundation are so vitally important to what we do.
Additionally, we have seen a rise in political activism within the Linux community and the Linux foundation over the last few years. Now I will not venture into either side of the political fray here, but I will say that it’s a broader symptom of our cultural psychosis where we hyper-focus on individual facets of our lives and make them central to who we are. This might not bother you, but I personally would prefer my tech to be as apolitical as possible. There’s enough hate and division in the world as there is; at least let me have my hobbies in peace!
The last negative isn’t really a Linux problem, but it’s a wider issue that is showing up in Linux more and more lately. As we get further and further from the hardware limitations of the early 2000s we’re starting to see distros dropping support for 32 bit CPUs. For most people that isn’t a problem, bit if you’re using an old machine you are going to have trouble. Thankfully there are certain distributions you can choose from that still run 32 bit kernels, as well as builds for other chips like PowerPC, ARM, and more.
Free Software: BSD
Another great set of open source operating systems are the BSDs. In my experience I’ve found FreeBSD to be a bit easier to get started with as it seems to be a bit more oriented toward desktop users. Other systems like GhostBSD and NomadBSD are out there too, but I’ve never used those. If you recall a couple of months back I gave helloSystem 0.8 a try and really enjoyed my time with it. That OS was built on a FreeBSD base with the goal of recreating a more traditional Mac OS look and feel. The other BSD I’ve tried and liked was OpenBSD, which I’ve seen more people using on servers due to it’s focus on security and stability, though I’d love to run it as a desktop OS.
BSD is harder for new users than Linux for a few reasons. While both are very technical systems, Linux has a much larger community with a lot more in terms of documentation. Linux also has a lot more hardware support than the BSDs, but that is also by design. The BSD developers aren’t looking to create a system to appeal to average users. BSD users tend to be quite technical and the expectation is that you will do your due diligence to troubleshoot a problem rather than just relying on the community to solve your issues for you. Also, because the developers are working to create a highly functional system, they target specific hardware and keep a good list of what works and what doesn’t, so if you want to run one of the BSDs, you’ll want to make sure you have the right components.
Free Software: Haiku
If Linux and BSD aren’t your thing and you want to try something a little different, there’s always the venerable Haiku. Haiku is an open source reimplementation of the Be operating system from the 90s. It’s been in development for nearly two decades and has seen some incredible improvement over the last few years. It’s super fast, can run on old and new hardware with pretty decent support, and has a ton of software ports available in the Haiku Depot. It’s a promising OS that has been getting a lot of love lately, which is great to see, but it is still beta software that is prone to crashing.
Free Software: SerenityOS
And then there is Serenity. Serenity is a brilliant OS with a ton of potential. If you like Unix-like systems, and if you like the desktop paradigm of the 1990s, then Serenity has your name written all over it. However, if you recall my first look at Serenity, it is still very much alpha software. It has to be built from the source code, along with any third party software ports, and pretty much only runs in a QEMU virtual machine which puts it out of the purview of most users. While that is extremely limiting, the rate at which the system is progressing is unbelievable and I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a release candidate some time in the next year or two.
Legacy Systems— Old Windows
If modern web browsing and modern software aren’t something that you are overly concerned with and you feel like you could get your work done with older software, there are always legacy systems like classic Windows and Mac OS.
If this is the path you want to go down, go with whatever you’re comfortable with. However, in my experience, I would stick to a handful of classic Windows systems.
Windows 98 SE — If you want or need good DOS compatibility and want classic Windows, you’re best bet is Windows 98 Second Edition. This release fixed a number of issues that Windows 98 had and is highly regarded within the retro computing scene. It’s widely considered the best of the Windows 9x line (95, 98, Me) and is where a number of the modern Windows features got their start. It’s also great for classic Windows and DOS gaming, and will support a ton of old Windows and DOS productivity work. While you can get 98 machines online, I wouldn’t hold your breath for anything aside from FrogFind browsing.
Windows 2000 — What you lose native DOS support, you gain in speed and stability. Windows 2000 was the 5th release of the business-oriented Windows NT line (as opposed to the consumer 9x line) and is one of the best operating systems ever made. It’s rock solid, fast, polished, and you can use a ton of Windows software from the 90s and 00s. If you like the stability of Windows XP but don’t like some of the changes that Microsoft made to the look and feel, Windows 2000 is a great alternative. Also, using Legacy Update, you can update the system with security patches and feature updates into the late 2000s making it a pretty competent system. Browser options are limited, but you can do a fair bit if you’re careful.
Windows XP — The legend. XP was one of, if not the, best Windows systems of all time. Compatibility with both NT and 9x software was fantastic, and it was supported into the mid-2010s with it’s last security patch coming in 2019 — a whole 18 years after XP released. If you want DOS support, download the XP supported version of DOSbox. It was also the last version to have modest hardware requirements. The downside? Like the previous systems in this list it was a 32 bit only system. Sure, there was a 64 bit version but it was limited compared to the standard version, and to my understanding it was pretty buggy.
Windows 7 — If you’re wanting real 64 bit support and a more classic Windows experience, you can’t really go wrong with Windows 7. Releasing in October of 2009 and losing support in January 2020, Windows 7 is still such a good system. Do I prefer Windows XP or 2000? Yeah I do, but you cannot deny just how good 7 is. It’s got so much more software support for modern systems and web browsers that it still holds up against Windows 10 and 11. While telemetry isn’t a thing by default in Windows 7 (to my knowledge), updates changed that over time. If you’re going to use Windows Update or Legacy Update to get Windows 7 up to date, be sure to run a script like this to remove the spyware that Microsoft sent out.
Legacy Systems — Old Mac OS
For Mac users, things are a little more difficult. Apple rolls over their operating systems much faster than Microsoft does, and hardware support is much more limited. If you’re a fan of a system like Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey, or Ventura, you’re probably better off going to Linux and ricing your setup to be like a Mac, or just stay with what you’ve got. Linux will give you the freedom of getting away from Apple’s control, but you lose out on the benefits of being an Apple user — namely, interoperability between devices and services. However, if you really want to stick with an Apple OS but don’t want them scanning your file system or force syncing your files to iCloud, you really only have two options.
Classic Mac OS is a great system. It’s not for everyone and it’s severely limited, but once you understand it you can have a ton of fun with it. Hardware is also very limited here; you really have to have vintage hardware to make it work well which then leads to trouble with failing hardware, leaky capacitors, and brittle plastics.
Also, those old systems don’t always talk to each other and software is limited to particular versions of the OS due to CPU architecture changes. My preferred version of classic Mac OS is OS 9 which ran on PowerPC (PPC) Macs. I believe it’s possible to run some 68k Mac software, but not all. Another issue here is that these old applications can be difficult to share data from. For instance, in order to open a .cwk file from AppleWorks 6 on OS 9 on a modern system, I have to transfer the file to my FTP server, then grab it from a newer machine and open it in LibreOffice to convert it to something like .doc, .docx, or .odt so it can be read by other programs.
And of course, being a system from the 90s, web support is virtually non-existent. Of course that is what FrogFind is for, but that is very limiting for most people. Now I know that is a lot of negatives, but if you like these old systems and you’re not really using them for modern kinds of things, then it can work very well for you. I mean, if you are writing stories or documents, organizing data in spreadsheets, listening to music, playing some old games, and the like, then you could make good use of something like OS 9.
Now, if you want to ACTUALLY get work done one an older Mac but don’t want to go back to the fruity colored goodness of the late 90s, then you’ll want to stick with OS X. Truth be told, Catalina was a great version. It was solid, got better with each update, communicated with Apple’s services just fine, and never gave me any headaches. If you used it and just didn’t sign into iCloud or the App Store, you’d probably be just fine and avoid tracking. Other systems that would be great for daily computing on OS X include:
10.4 “Tiger” — Released in 2005, Tiger is a phenomenal system. I run it from time to time on my old white 2008 MacBook. It’s super fast, has a really good version of iTunes pre-installed, and if you’re running it on a PPC MacBook or iBook, you have access to the Classic environment which basically runs OS 7/8/9 apps in a virtualized sandbox which seriously expands your options for software. Intel users — like myself — don’t get such goodness and that makes me sad.
10.6 “Snow Leopard” — Released in 2009 Snow Leopard is widely regard as probably the best version of OS X ever released. It had that iconic skeuomorphic design with a ton of great software available. It was a solid release that was fast and stable, and is still pretty decent these days. While not great for web browsing these days, I’ve had pretty good results with the Spider Web browser, and of course there is always FrogFind.
10.9 “Mavericks” — Mavericks came out back in 2013 but is probably my favorite — or second favorite, behind Tiger — version of OS X. It has a simplified skeuomorphic UI from what Mountain Lion had, and started to really integrate with the other Apple services, but they weren’t really an integral part of the OS like they are today. In my mind, Mavericks takes what was great about Snow Leopard and just matured everything a bit more. And if you recall, back in July of 2022, I was able to find a relatively new web browser (Firefox ESR 78) that still delivered the full modern web experience for when that’s needed.
If you ask any reasonable person they would probably tell you to stick with something like Linux as an exit strategy OS, but I’m of the opinion that if you know what you’re doing and you’re careful with web use, these old systems are still a viable option for us today.
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