I’ve spent the past few posts ranting about the state of big tech and how it is just getting worse and found myself feeling a little off.

I’ve been going on and on about moving away from big tech and here I am using Windows. While I really like Windows 11, there is something wrong with having to spend time disabling tracking and ads in a fucking operating system. I recently reinstalled Windows 10 on an old laptop and the amount of absolute crap you have to opt out of/disable/uninstall is just stupid.

So I decided to give Linux a try once again. Fedora 41 (Jam) baby!

Took a bit of work at the start. I don’t know what I did with my first install, but after messing around in the console trying to get software installed for my keyboard and mouse, I rebooted to an 800×600 desktop with no other hardware working properly: no internet, no sound and… whatever. I’d not installed anything at that point so I reinstalled and here we are.

Issues and Thoughts So Far…

• • • Reaper won’t connect to my Scarlett 2i2. Got this somewhat fixed; the Scarlett is connecting now. It’s a GUI issue in Reaper. When you choose ALSA, you have to choose the device. If you click on the drop down, you get a blank list. This led me to beleive that the hardware was not detected. Turns out that you have to click exactly on the drop down arrows to see your device choices (e_e) I still need to test at some point as I don’t see the two separate inputs when I select a track input.
    • Installing and getting Scrivener ¹ to run on Linux was a pain in the ass. I tried setting it up in Bottles and just could not get my license to activate no matter what I tried. I finally got it running in Lutris and so far so good even if the font rendering isn’t as crisp as it is in Windows. It did crash a couple of times at the beginning, but I messed with it and now have it working. I am pleased that I can access the work saved from Windows via my OneDrive folders (thank you sooo much Insync!).
    • Razer. Oh Razer. I love your hardware. Your DeathAdder mice are the best I’ve used when it comes to ergonomics and feel. And this Ornata TKL I have is is simply fantastic. Your software though? Garbage. Just garbage. For Linux there is OpenRazer. Means I can get my hardware working in Linux, yay! Everything is just as janky in Linux as it is in Windows, boo! Note that this is a not a bitch about Linux, or the people who work on OpenRazer. This is a bitch about Razer. I really don’t know why these companies can’t make decent software for their devices ².

And… I think that’s it? For now anyway. I mean, I just can’t figure out how to customize parts of the interface; there have been some changes in KDE Plasma in the past year and a half it seems, but that’s just me nitpicking. Besides, I’m goddamn playing The Witcher 3.

On Linux.

And it’s absolutely glorious ³.

Look, I could go on about this shit forever and I know that there are those of you out there rolling their eyes thinking “oh, here he goes again!”. I also know that me blathering on about this shit doesn’t really amount to anything, but so what? I’m allowed to change my mind when I want just like everyone else is allowed to change their minds if they want. And like you all out there, I have to navigate the systems in which we live. I’m just not going to play ball one hundred percent of the time. I want to try and live by what I feel is right and blindly supporting Big Tech is not something I feel comfortable doing so I’m going to do my best to not support them, I know that there are times that I’ll have to use their services. I’ll just have to be conscious of my decisions.

Will this Linux thing work this time around? I don’t know. I really don’t know. But I do know that I didn’t feel right not even trying.

^1: I own and use Scrivener for writing non blog stuff. After spending nearly six months trying out different writing software, Scrivener was the one that had the features I need and would use. Unfortunately, it’s Windows and Mac only.

^2: I mean, come on. I’m a simple man. I just want my lighting set to static white. That’s it. I don’t care about game modes or intelligent functions or breathing fire waterfalls. Just static white. Yet this never sticks. And if I bounce back to Windows for a moment holy crap, the lighting in both the mouse and the keyboard starts having seizures. The shit thing is that the software for all other peripheral companies is just as bad, if not worse. I’ve had to deal with Logitech before and Razer is downright revolutionary in comparison.

^3: For this I give a semi-cautious shout out to Valve and their Proton compatibility layer. Yes, I know Proton exists so they can sell Steam Decks and yes, there are things wrong with Steam,  but no other game group has, that I can see, has allowed for something like Proton. Sure, there is Lutris (which I have installed for Scrivener, but yet to try with games), but the fact that Steam not only built this compatibility layer but decided to include it in a Linux desktop version of Steam is actually pretty amazing and, so far, the experience has been seamless.

Is Valve one of the bad guys? Sure, they are. I mean, they are the biggest digital game storefront there is so they do throw their weight around. Yes, yes, I have a GOG account, have bought games from them, and support their “you own the game” ideals, but unless Lutris really comes through then GOG is pretty much Windows only, and even if the GOG platform means well, they still offer and support games from the big studios so where do I stop?  I’m not here to go down every rabbit hole. I’m here to do the best that I can.