I’ve been using Linux for years, but as the proprietary alternatives get more aggressive with telemetry and adverts, I wanted to document the choices that actually keep my desktop predictable.
This isn’t a manual, but a practical overview of my setup. From why I’ve settled on CachyOS and KDE Plasma for my main rig, to the reality of dealing with proprietary software and app compatibility in 2026. It’s just an honest look at the transition and why I’m done with the corporate defaults.
Personally, my problem with systemd is that it’s slowly trying to take over everything it possibly can, and be as hard to remove as possible.
It’s not “so you just think it’s all a single binary!”. No, I’m 100% aware it’s multiple binaries. The problem is that it’s a single project, and that’s too much power to give to one single project.
“oh but you can swap out the individual parts!” Sure. For SOME of them. Until you swap out the systemd init and suddenly have to relearn a shitton of completely random other stuff because systemd was doing a boatload of other things. Might as well get that out of the way early and use normal other projects for the other stuff, and also ditching the init system can’t hurt just to reduce their stranglehold.
Also OpenRC might be worth looking into. “systemd or Old™ Nasty™ sysv scripts” is a false dichotomy, openrc’s init scripts are declarative like systemd units (and it also supports sysv scripts). There are also totally different init systems (but we don’t know much about them, we started with systemd and then jumped to openrc recently).
– Frost