I Tried to Go Fully Open Source and Nearly Lost My Mind
I did something stupid. I decided, in full earnestness, that I was going to go fully open source. No proprietary software. No closed-source drivers. A completely libre, ethically sourced, freedom-respecting computing environment.
I lasted six days.
Day 1: The Setup
I installed Linux. Not a user-friendly Linux. A Linux that makes you feel like you’ve earned it. I chose Arch, because I hate myself. The installation took four hours. I spent 45 minutes configuring my window manager. I felt like a god.
I tweeted about it. Two people liked it. One of them was my mom.
Day 2: The First Cracks
I needed to edit a PDF. Simple, right? I found five open-source PDF editors. Three of them crashed on launch. One opened but couldn’t save. The last one worked but looked like it was designed in 1997.
I printed the PDF, wrote on it with a pen, and scanned it back in. I told myself this was “a creative workflow solution.” It was not.
Day 3: The Graphics Driver Incident
My graphics card is not open-source friendly. I learned this after my display manager refused to start and I had to chroot from a USB stick at 1 AM to fix it. I don’t know how to chroot from a USB stick. I learned.
The fix involved compiling a kernel module from source. The compilation took 37 minutes. I sat in the dark and watched the build output scroll by like it was the Matrix. At some point I started questioning my life choices.
Day 4: The Microsoft Meeting
I had a client call. They use Teams. The open-source Teams client works approximately 60% of the time. Today was the other 40%. I joined the call 15 minutes late after fighting with authentication. I apologized. The client said “no problem, we understand.” They didn’t understand. Nobody understands.
I spent the rest of the day researching if there’s an open-source alternative to having clients.
Day 6: The Breaking Point
I tried to open a .docx file. LibreOffice rendered it with the formatting of a ransom note written by someone having a seizure. Fonts were wrong. Margins shifted. An image of a chart was just… gone. Replaced with a red X.
I stared at the red X for a long time. The red X stared back.
That evening I installed a proprietary office suite. I felt dirty. I also felt productive for the first time in six days.
What I Learned
The open-source ecosystem is incredible. It’s also held together with duct tape, hope, and the unpaid labor of people who are way more committed than I am. I respect them. I also respect my own sanity.
I still run Linux on my servers. I still use open-source tools where they work. But I’ve made peace with the occasional proprietary compromise.
Some battles aren’t worth fighting when you just need to edit a spreadsheet.
Moral of the story: Stallman would be disappointed in me. I’ll live.