Not updating as often as I used to which is probably a good thing :} I have tried several linux distributions and a few BSD distributions this year. Still love linux and the freedom and control you get. BSD is solid but more geared towards servers. I don't know why but I love getting into the nuts and bolts of my OS. I recently installed arch linux from the command line. It's about as low level as you can get. The nice thing about installing this way is you know the purpose of every file on your system and how to fix things if or when they break.
My favorite thing in linux is to download the source code of programs I like and change things to meet my needs. I'm getting good at reading C code and modifying parts of programs and recompiling. My computer rarely stays the same for two days in a row. There are days I've tried out 3 or 4 linux distributions. I feel sorry for my hard drive at times :}
Recently I discovered that someone involved with Tinycore linux had modified one of my favorite window managers called FLWM. They had moved the titlebar from the left side to the top and moved some buttons around. I decided to download the source code, I modified the config.h file to change the keybindings and compiled. It's now become my favorite window manager. Very fast and lean with unique mouse binds. Again that's the beauty of linux and open source is that anyone can modify or improve the original program.
I still hear from people that linux will never be mainstream, but what they don't know is it already is. So many mainstream programs borrow from linux or opensource software: Android, Webkit (Chrome and Safari browsers), CUPS (printing), Steam (gaming), etc. There are also many opensource programs that have been ported to windows and OSX i.e. The Gimp, VLC, 7zip, etc. Linux is heavily used in Healthcare, Scientific research, and servers. Linux may never be the OS for the average home user due to fact you can change everything including your user interface and there are 100's of distributions to choose from instead of one size fits all. Its opposite of the Apple locked down approach, which prevents the user from changing almost anything. OSX is popular because users that don't want to mess with their computers don't ever need to, things just work because there is only one way to do something. It's possible to install linux and configure it with a similar apple locked down interface, however that's not what Linux is about. It's about software choice and software freedom. I can change or modify even the source code of a program to make it how I choose. This will never be popular with the average user but it sure is with developers as they can simply borrow from someones program make a few changes and release. Some huge corporations are reaping the benefits.
