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ToyKeeper

150 karma · joined July 7, 2026

Shiny things, weird noises, and free software. :: toykeeper.net/tktsto :: toykeeper.net/anduril
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ToyKeeper··on Xorg-server 26.1.0 rc1
Exactly. It's hard to be enthusiastic about something which breaks a lot of stuff I rely on daily, when the benefit is that it fixes problems I've never had.

My theory about the motivation behind the extra security is that it's largely driven by corporations wanting to make desktop Linux less free and less open, and normalize proprietary software instead of open-source. Because profit. Proprietary software is inherently not trustworthy, so the execution environment needs extra security and restrictions, and must be generally less powerful to reduce the damage it can do. Essentially, proprietary software needs the same precautions as malware. So the corps needed to "androidify" desktop Linux. Hence the change from curated distro package repositories to corporate app stores, and the reason why there's so much money pushing to replace X11 with Wayland.

In an open-source ecosystem, users and developers are one and the same, or at least on the same "side", cooperating with each other to make tools which work as well as possible for everyone. Each big program tends to be a collaborative effort where a lot of people contribute to make things better for everyone. Things mostly "just work" and people can typically trust their computers not to do anything weird or hostile.

Very different than a proprietary commercial ecosystem, where users and developers have more of an adversarial relationship. Each program tends to be created in a closed silo by one person or a relatively small team, and is designed primarily to extract money from users, with all other concerns being secondary. It is very common for profit-driven developers to engage in deceptive practices, or do things the user doesn't want, like showing advertisements, collecting and selling data, sabotaging products from competitors, using the device as a node in a botnet or secret compute farm, forcing unwanted updates, microtransactions or subscription fees, etc. So nothing can be trusted, and the entire system needs extensive protections against every type of misbehavior imaginable... even if that means reducing the power and features available to the user.

I've really enjoyed the past few decades of living entirely in the open-source world, where those problems pretty much just don't exist. But with corps pushing the androidification of desktop Linux, I fear those days may be coming to an end.

ToyKeeper··on Xorg-server 26.1.0 rc1
X11 was 21 years old when the Wayland folks decided it was obsolete and needed to be replaced.

Wayland is now about 18 years old. So, by Wayland standards, only 3 more years until it, too, will be obsolete and need to be replaced.

That day can't come soon enough. :D

Maybe the next one will actually be able to do the things I need a display system to do. Until then, at least we've still got X11. And Wayland has taught everyone all sorts of things about what not to do.

ToyKeeper··on Xorg-server 26.1.0 rc1
Hooray! A new release of Xorg is always a good reason to celebrate. Long live the all-singing all-dancing feature-rich network-transparent display system which is still the best (and often only) solution for a lot of common user needs, even 39 years after its creation.
ToyKeeper··on The Color of White Light
Dang, who is this Zak guy? Seems like a huge nerd.

(spoiler: he's the admin of /r/flashlight, an expert on lighting, a widely respected reviewer, maintainer of the community's quarterly "arbitrary list of popular flashlights", author of "ceilingbounce" for measuring torch brightness over time, and someone who calls himself a "huge nerd" ... so yeah, he knows a thing or two)

ToyKeeper··on Frame – Linux X server in Assembly
It's funny to see someone using a LLM as a compiler, making it convert higher-level operations into assembly, instead of just using a compiler.
ToyKeeper··on I Like Small Keyboards
Yeah, 65% to 75% is great. It may be "boring", compared to the more exotic layouts, but I've tried a bunch and I like this more. The traditional rectangle is popular for a reason.

The main thing is... it's gotta have open-source firmware. After switching to something like QMK, I wouldn't want to go back. I customize stuff too deeply to go back... like 8 to 12 layers and a bunch of completely custom behavior. And for notebooks, remappers like Kanata help immensely.

Ideally it's nice to have a small touchpad under the space bar, like maybe 4 keys wide, retro style, meaning a high-DPI zero-force touchpad. But that's optional. With good firmware, I don't really need a mouse because MouseKeys and Warp do most of what I need.

The world has a lot of problems, but ... at least we've got a wide selection of awesome keyboards these days, to suit nearly every person's style and taste. Typing has never been better.

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