Hello.

I was debootstrapping a debian 11 on some partitions yesterday (because my upgrade path won't be easy considering my tweaks, between the init system and the rebuilt packages...) and started to create a mindmap of stuff to do next time (turns out it almost looks like a roadmap of stuff to do to create a distro, but that's another topic).

In the end, I noticed... or rather, am noticing, that I do not use that many programs, and that this tool (the mindmap) allows me to get a better understanding of what I use, in which context, and why, if I would like a replacement or not, etc.

I might end in sharing the file, when it will be a bit more refined, but it spawned the (one in title) questions of: do you really know which tools you are using? Do you know why you're using them? Do you know any alternatives to them? Why not use them? How would you collect those informations for future use (when a program stops working (depends on deprecated tech), when your needs evolve, etc)?

Note that I only have in mind the tools you use, not the ones the tools you use depends on, that's a very different thing.

I think it would be interesting to have thoughts from fellow nixers on those questions, and maybe on other ones you might ask in the discussion?