Hey all. I've been thinking a lot recently about the software-related philosophies I wish to follow and such. This is a convoluted post, so bear with me.

For example if you saw my introduction thread (I'm new here. o/), you saw I'm trying to figure out what OS to settle on (again). I believe that free software is the way to go. I want complete control over my system, and I believe using proprietary software restricts that. I haven't had the usecase yet of needing to modify a program I use at the source code level (except programs like st and dwm where that's the only way to configure it), but I want the option. If shit hits the fan, I want the option to maintain my own fork of the software. Additionally, I care about privacy and think free software is the only way to go with that so you can verify what programs are doing in the background.

I'm trying to figure out how much I care. Right now, my only computers are a Thinkpad T420 and a Thinkpad X201 Tablet. The T420 is my main workstation and the X201 Tablet has laid dormant for a while (going to use it for ebooks soon). Both require proprietary drivers for their Intel wireless NICs. For the X201, this isn't too big of a deal since I can just use ethernet since I'm only going to use it to read. However, the T420 is a bigger issue since I will use it for everyday stuff. I eventually would like to flash the BIOS and use an Atheros NIC (I also could use a USB NIC); however, I don't trust the modified BIOSes that people have written and Coreboot still has some thermal issues which kinda scare me, but maybe they're not as big of a deal.

Other philosophy I really care about is the Unix philosophy of a program doing one thing and doing it really well. I think it makes it so that programs are easier to understand and extend. It's great how I can combine programs to accomplish things instead of waiting for a feature to be added, etc. I'm also a minimalist, so this follows that I think. If I don't need a feature, I just don't have the package installed. It's pretty easy to follow this if you choose the right user programs on pretty much any GNU/Linux distribution. However, as y'all know, systemd does not follow this and is on most GNU/Linux distros.

So let's get to the point of this post: I'm trying to determine how much I care about the above philosophies in the end to get stuff done. Like I said, my Thinkpads use Intel NICs. Until I can get a librebooted X200, I will always be using proprietary software in some form or another because of firmware even if I use Atheros NICs or no wireless on them because of the BIOS. This also extends to if I care about using Linux-libre or another deblobbed kernel or if I'm satisfied with what ships with whatever distribution I pick like Void Linux or Arch even with using a completely free system like my future X200. RE: Unix philosophy, I'm trying to figure out if I care enough to not use systemd. I haven't had a point where systemd has really hindered me. With my future X200, it'd probably be beneficial to just use Parabola since it guarantees I won't use proprietary software. If I do that though, it'd be great for my T420 and X201 Tablet to run Arch (or Parabola if I don't use the Intel NICs) so that my systems are uniform. However, all of that would mean stepping away from the Unix philosophy a bit due to systemd. With Void Linux, the main distro I've been looking at recently, I'd have to either be ok with proprietary blobs in the kernel if I'm not using them or compile Linux-libre myself.

Also while I've used Void before, I would have to learn a lot (which I'm willing to do. It's a matter of if it's worth the time) about it. It's also smaller than Arch, so there's the potential of it dying or not having a resource I need to fix my system if something happens. I basically want a community distro that's all free software while being big enough to sustain itself. I've also considered BSD, specifically OpenBSD, but I would have even more learning to do before I could even use it, and I want to get stuff done right now like actually coding which I've neglected for a while.

I hope I've written this well enough for you to understand. I'm trying to figure out what I care most about in which areas to balance following them with practicalities. Part of me wanting to write this post is maybe external processing. This might've just ended up being just a flow of thoughts onto a page that is not coherent. This is also my first forum post outside of my introduction, so I could be completely off base as to what you guys what on nixers.

What do you guys do? Do you use systemd even though you prefer the Unix philosophy? Do you use a blobbed kernel even though you are a strict free software user? Are you neither of these for some reason or another? I want this to be a discussion in general and not just "what should d9a do?". Thanks for reading if you got this far!

Edit: I've also had the thought that if I'm willing to use non-free wireless drivers, should I install the Intel microcode updates because of Spectre and Meltdown...? So much to decide on.