Dear Tio and everyone,
Firstly, thank you very much for all your hard work on TROMjaro – the love and care you have put into it very much shows. I have tried out nearly 20 different distributions over the past few months and it is the only one that I have truly felt “at home” with, and brings a sense of joy in providing an OS that I can now work towards moving to. I come from quite a technical background (mainly in instrumentation development and R&D project management – no coding abilities I’m afraid), and have always relied upon quite a wide range of different software, which has made it difficult for me to escape using Windows. But I have long had an interest in moving to Linux and away from reliance on tools developed under compromised motives. The people and groups you spend your time engaging with has a way of reflecting back upon yourself more than most people seem to appreciate.
I last tried out Linux perhaps a decade ago, and at that time, Mint was the only one I could find that worked out of the box on my laptop. Currently I still use Windows 8.1, which, despite all the hatred for it is quite a decent OS under the hood once you have tweaked it well away from the silly defaults. But I have spent too much of my life fixing Windows 10 machines for other people to ever wish to use it myself, and the pathway Microsoft is following all the other big tech companies down is looking increasingly ugly. In the meantime, the entire Linux ecosystem has clearly made significant strides forwards in recent years.
I had actually come across TROM before, though I’m afraid I only recall getting as far as a very large pdf file which was difficult for me to digest (I have a strong preference for books in .epub format so that I can read them on a non-backlit display). I still have yet to go through most of the TROM content, but from what I have seen seems very much aligned with my own ethics (which could be described most simply by saying that if you come across someone who is thirsty when you have water, then any sane human would offer the water, rather than first asking for something in return).
[What I couldn’t see is whether there is some kind of separate discussion forum for TROM?]
I was also very much touched by Tio’s personal story on his blog which resonated deeply with me for multiple reasons. I can certainly relate to losing your health from working too hard for other people. I was already past breaking point with that well before the pandemic arrived, and have been barely surviving in the years since then with long covid.
I was going to say and ask more about TROMjaro, but that is as much as I can manage for now, so I will have to return with a follow-up another time.
Best wishes to all,
Brian
@BB@scicomm.xyz
. The more you struggle in life, the rarer and more precious gems they seem to become 
- well, contradicting. About some of their decisions. But there are many misconceptions about Manjaro into the wild. For one, for the past 2-3 years Manjaro has been rock solid stable. I keep a close eye on some 10 different devices for example, none bricked or experienced any major issues for the past 2 or so years. Sample size is small, but then take the Manjaro user base…
