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Which would be what OS?


Sigh I really wish it was easier to use a non-tracking OS.

Personally, I use Hardened Gentoo and actively avoid downloading binaries + a lot of other tweaks to the "standard" Linux setup to patch what I see as obvious holes. Perhaps I need to elaborate more on a blog post.

It is very inconvenient yet for me I accept it as a price worth paying. The great thing about Linux though is that there are many middle roads. On one hand, you could just use Ubuntu (hey, they even turned off the tracking stuff in 15.10) and the Tor Browser, and then you've pretty much eliminated most of the casual advertiser-level tracking (if you follow basic hygiene). On the other, you could go and build your own custom distribution with packages audited by you and always built from source, only after having verified personally all the developers' GPG keys...


Not parent, but W10 convinced to me commit to using only Linux at home. Used to be Linux-exclusive for years in college, so I figure why not. My work and portables are all OS X, which is still far more privacy conscious than W10.


I agree. At work I'm forced to use windows and osx (supporting enterprise users), but I've begun testing various linux os's (mint,arch,elementary) as preparation to leave windows behind for personal use. I've actually found it to be liberating in a weird way.


Have you found a favourite distro? I started using Ubuntu a couple of years ago on my home laptop, but when that new design came out with that horrible big side bar, I kind of gave up on it.

I also ended up buying a new laptop that came with Windows 7 so the Ubuntu one sits in the attic rotting. Still, I'm still tempted to move back to a good GUI based Linux distro if I can find one. I just haven't got the time these days to start installing different ones and testing then out.


I use Xubuntu on Work PC, Home PC, Media PC and Laptop.

I love XFCE, It's fast, stable, easily configured, uses normal GTK stuff so fits with the Gnome apps, is a regular plain old desktop (main menu, window buttons/taskbar).

Mostly the thing I like about XFCE is I don't have to think about it, it just does it's thing, stays out of my way and doesn't break a user interface covenant I'm used to all the way back to Win95.

Of course you can run XFCE on pretty much any distro but the Xubuntu folks do an excellent job of packaging it all up and having access to Ubuntu's PPA's is a big win since pretty much everything is packaged for it.


Exactly. I'm not a fan of any of the "popular" desktop environments. I liked Gnome 2 and didn't mind using it (RHEL desktops) but for several years XFCE has been my favorite. It has all the features I need but isn't too intrusive and stays out of my way. I'm not really a big Ubuntu fan either but I can't complain too much about Xubuntu.


It's also the only one I've tried that allows me a taskbar per screen with only window entries from that screen, something I've done since Gnome 2, You can sorta do it with plugins with Gnome but they break all the time, KDE can do it in theory but KDE is awful (I'd like to like but never have).


So far as someone fairly new to linux, I'm liking Linux Mint Cinnamon. My second choice would be Elementary https://elementary.io/ but it was running a little slow on my laptop.


Hardened Gentoo? *BSD? ArchLinux?

They still come with some kind of tracking, like Chromium downloads binary blob that manages your microphone, or Firefox that includes telemetry and crash reporting, but at least you can easily recompile Fx without pocket, WebRTC etc. which you can't do in Win10.


Windows 95


OpenBSD and FreeBSD, primarily.


Debian?


RiscOS


System V




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