An Ode to Linux Desktop Users Everywhere
Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels. The package makers, the man page writers. The rounded windows in Qt mixed with the less rounded windows of GTK. The ones who literally see things differently because of missing proprietary fonts.
They’re not fond of rules, installation wizards, double clicking and have no respect for the status quo.
You can downvote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you cannot do is ignore them. Because they ship your bug fixes.
They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy. How else can you stare at an empty screen and know that you have to blacklist your video card driver? Or sit in silence while tweaking alsamixer on the command line? Or write bash aliases to reload your network driver kernel module each time your laptop resumes from suspension? We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because people who are crazy enough to think that they can run Linux on the desktop, are the ones who change the world.
Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.
Check out some more stuff to read down below.
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Recent Favorite Blog Posts
This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.
- A eulogy for Vim from Drew DeVault's blog
- Pluralistic: AI "journalists" prove that media bosses don't give a shit (11 Mar 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- Avi Alkalay: Uniqlo T-Shirt Bash Script Easter Egg from Fedora People
- Offline 23 hours a day from Derek Sivers blog
- Pluralistic: California can stop Larry Ellison from buying Warners (28 Feb 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- On Alliances from Smashing Frames
- Acting ethically in an imperfect world from Smashing Frames
- Diffusion of Responsibility from Smashing Frames
Articles from blogs I follow around the net
“Use links, don’t talk about them.”
The classic – but still important – rule of web design says to avoid labeling links “click here.” It’s one of the oldest web design principles. Tim Berners-Lee wrote about it in 1992; if you visit this link right now, it might be the oldest pag…
via Unsung April 17, 2026Markdown.new + bookmarklet
Markdown.new is a nice little tool to convert a webpage into Markdown without any fuss. To make it even easier, I created a bookmarklet to instantly convert the page you’re viewing to Markdown. javascript:(()=>{location.href='https://markdown.new/…
via Information Overload April 17, 2026JTR
This week on the People and Blogs series we have an interview with JTR, whose blog can be found at taonaw.com. Tired of RSS? Read this in your browser or sign up for the newsletter. People and Blogs is supported by the "One a Mon…
via Manuel Moreale — Everything Feed April 17, 2026Generated by openring