 So it has become a little bit of a tradition for me to sit down in front of the camera each year at the beginning of the Year to talk about where the channel has been for the last year and where it's going for the next one So since today or at least when this video comes out. It's New Year's Day I figured it was a good time to do this again So we're gonna talk about where the channel has been in 2023 and where it's going in 2024 But before we jump into any of that stuff happy new year. Welcome to 2024 I hope 2023 was good to you guys and that it that 2024 is just as good or better than 2023 was So happy new year hope you guys all have had a wonderful holiday season and are ready to jump into the new year With fresh feet and all that stuff. So that's what I have to say about all that But now it's time to talk about 2023 and wrap up before we jump into some plans for 2024 So the year overall 2023 was very good to the channel went up almost 20,000 subscribers Views are way up all that stuff is just phenomenal And I'm so very very grateful to everyone who watches the channel whether you're Brand new or you've been watching for a very long time. Thank you so very much for your patronage Whether it's financially or just watching the channel and leaving likes and comments and all that stuff Thank you so very much. Seriously If people weren't watching the content, I'd stop making it. That's just kind of the way it is I enjoy making the content But it'd be a lot less fun if I was just making it for myself You know if I if I were in my mom and my dad and my family were the only ones watching my videos I'd be pretty sad and probably not as ambitious as I am So thank you so much for watching the channel. I do really appreciate it I say that the end channel at the end of every video, but I just want to let you guys know Thank you so very much So other than having the channel grow in a spectacular fashion, which just continues to blow my mind There were some struggles over the course of the years the biggest one being that in march I had covet and while I was thankful not to have covet in the actual pandemic years I was very lucky and my whole family was lucky really And obviously not everyone was that lucky. So I'm grateful for that We had covet kind of at the tail end And I was pretty much out of commission for about four weeks And while I'm very grateful that I was able to recover from that my whole family recovered from it It did take quite a bit of time for the channel to recover from taking four weeks off It turns out that youtube doesn't like you to take time off from your channel So it took about until mid june almost july before I was back to pre-covid levels in terms of Growth and putting out content and all that stuff. It took a while So I'm grateful that I was able to kind of overcome that and Actually have the channel continue to grow because a lot of channels who who their creators had covet And while they they recovered from covet their channel some of them did not And that's not just like small-sized creators like me like me, but bigger creators as well Just their their channels just completely died off because they got sick and that's sad, right? So I'm very grateful that that didn't happen to me One of the things that kind of came out of that is that I realized that I was making too much content So I don't you've probably noticed that I don't make as many videos as I used to I still try to keep up a somewhat regular Publishing schedule and while in the the past few months or so it hasn't been exactly, you know Today's Monday you guys get a video usually I try to fit in two or three videos a week along with a podcast That's the way that I've been trying to do it and that's going to continue on forward But we'll talk more about that here in a few minutes I think overall it has been good though that I've been putting out a little bit less content Because I've both been trying to make better videos, but also it just makes me feel Less like I'm doing this because I have to right sometimes before COVID and I was putting on a video basically every day It felt like I had to sit down after I was done with my day job And open up audacity open up obs and then What am I making a come? What am I making a video about? I had no plan oftentimes usually the thing I made a video on there was something I made a decision to make a video on like five minutes before I made it and you could tell Half the time there was no research Well, the majority of time there was no research and I was just hopping into a Topic, you know willy-nilly and either you know, I had an overabundance of rants Which I do like to do the rant videos, but I don't want every video to turn into a rant video Or they were turning into a ramble. I do tend to ramble in all my videos So that's probably never going to change But they got kind of squashed in there and I feel by making less content and Actually deciding what I want to do before I want to do it well in advance I can make better content overall And that's something that I've been trying to do over the course of the last six months or so Whether or not I've been successful That's up to you guys to judge But I think and feel like I've done a much better job of Being mentally more prepared to make the videos and because I make fewer videos I don't feel that pressure to make a video every single night If I if I don't have a good idea for a video or I didn't make a good plan for a video I just don't make a video. It's as simple as that I Then I can if it gets too late at night or whatever and I haven't shot or You know opened up obs yet and even if I had a plan and I don't want to rush it I can actually just say I can push this to the next day It's going to be fine. The channel is going to survive if I take a day off Or if I don't get a video edited in time or shot in time I can just push it to the next day and it's perfectly fine. Everything's you know, the world's not going to end You know, all you guys aren't going to hit the subscribe button just because I took a day off Which I'm very grateful for obviously, but it's made my mental health much much better over the course of the last six months I feel much happier making content like this than I did when I was shoving out a video every single day Brodie Robinson does the video every single day. I have no clue how he does has done it for so long Seriously kudos for him. I'm glad that works for him, but it just it didn't work for me Other than that 2023 was kind of the year I got away from the distros and what I mean by that is that you guys Especially in the second half of the year didn't see so many distros for me You saw a lot of big-time distros so open susan fedora and debian But you didn't see little distros like I used to do those wtf videos, you know on the random distro watch Distro that I chose for the day I got away from that a little bit because I got bored with those types of you know, first look review things I just don't care for those or those types of videos very much anymore and I got away from it And I've been trying to get back into those to be honest with you because I do make good content A lot of people really like them But I wanted to make them in a way that were interesting to me And we'll talk again more about that later because I have finally figured out a way to make those interesting But over the course of the last six months, you guys haven't seen much in terms of new distros for me I just don't haven't done that over the course of the last six months and In some ways, I'm happy that I took a break from it because it has allowed me to kind of Ponder over how I can make those better. But also I just kind of There's only so many times you can take a look at a debian spin and think oh, this is cool It's just debian with Nothing special with a different name. I mean half the time That's what they are. I mean if we're all being honest with each other and you know That's can get boring not only for you guys But it gets really boring for me because there's only so many ways you can package a debian distro There's only so many different ways you can package an arch distro And you know you look at enough of those and they just kind of all started blitting together and like what's this one here? Really for why why did somebody waste their time on this? you know It got to a certain point where I was doing those distros and I wasn't very nice to those developers because I was bored. It was more of a reflection on my Disinterest in doing that type of video than it was on the distribution itself And that just kind of led me to not want to do them anymore You know, I didn't want bad mouthing developers is never a very good idea Especially when you don't have a really good reason to to bad mouth them Uh when when they have when there's a good reason to bad mouth them, I'll do that But when it's just because I'm bored with doing those videos. It's not a good reason So I stopped and I think that over you know Going forward I found a good way of doing those videos so that I can stay interested in those and not you know Become so burnt out on doing them over and over again We'll talk about that here in a minute the last thing that kind of happened in 2023 was the death of the short Uh now youtube asks you to do shorts all the time They really do want you to do shorts and live streams and regular content They want you to kind of mix everything together Because it just helps with the algorithm and stuff like that, but I've never been very good at short things I like to ramble and if you cut my Rambling time down to a minute. I get really sad And angry and frustrated and I've never never been very good at it, but coming up in the the new year I'll be bringing back some shorts. I'll probably try to do one a week if I can I'm not sure how long I'll be able to stick with that But probably what will happen and this will be the ultimate cheat is to take small clips from the podcast And make them into the shorts kind of like the linux tube does and several other Uh linux youtubers and linux podcasters do if I can do that It'll save me time. I don't actually have to make shorts But also it'll mean that I can keep those things shorts You know actually short instead of me rambling on for ever and ever and ever So that was kind of 2023 overall a very very good years for the channel And I'm just so very grateful that the channel continues, you know growing and I'm continuing to be happy with it. I'm just very very grateful I don't know other words to say it. So thank you guys for watching for that. So 2024 is here it has been for a few hours now as of you guys watching this probably for most people at least I don't know what time I'll actually press the publish button, but I think for most people 2024 is here So what's coming up? Well, first off, we'll obviously want the channel to continue growing because that makes me happy and Satisfies my need to become mr. Beast That's not gonna happen man. That's not gonna happen. I'm just joking. I have no interest in becoming mr. Beast I'll take his money, but I don't really need his his fame But anyways, that's beside the point. Uh, I have many many plans over the course of the next year that I want to do So first Publishing schedule. I actually want to have a publishing schedule again I got away from that and like I said earlier where I can just you know, if I don't want to do a video I don't have to do a video I want to still be able to do that part of it, but I want to have a more structured release schedule so you guys can kind of Know when a linux cast video is going to come out. So And you're already on the schedule whether you like it or not I'm going to be releasing videos Let's see if I can remember that how I set this up. I I'm doing it monday wednesday friday saturday and sunday So you get five videos a week. So tuesday or excuse me wednesday friday and sat Sunday will be regular videos saturday will be the live stream for the podcast and monday Will be the day you'll get the podcast and edit it for him So it'll be a day later than normal. We're doing that for editing purposes But that's the schedule as we have it right now and that's the direction I want to carry on through the entire year now I reserve the right to edit that if something doesn't work for me But as of right now, I think that that's going to be the best way to do it And i'm going to keep my ability to not do a video when I don't want to by simply being ahead That's going to be now I've talked about getting ahead in every single one of these Lookforward videos that I've ever done every single one of them This is like my fourth one and i've never done it very well Like this is I do it for a good for a while And then I stop because getting ahead is hard and i'm a lazy bastard It's just I got honest to god truth of it. I I look at the fact. Oh look at that I have a whole bunch of videos pre-recorded. I don't have to make a video Woohoo, I can go place in you know, uh city skylines or read a book or whatever and woohoo And and slowly and slowly the cache of videos that I have, you know, penned up for you guys disappears and all of a sudden like Oh, shit. I don't have a video for tonight. What am I going to do? That's happened to me more than once so i'm hoping by you know trying harder That I can have a large enough front-loaded Recording, you know apparatus thing whatever Whereas I can you know, if I want a day off I can because I have a video, you know already recorded and ready to go But I don't take so many days off that my Stash of videos goes away. So I'm hoping to stay ahead right now I'm three or four videos ahead and I think that by staying ahead, you know starting early And having an actual plan and a schedule and all that stuff Is going to do me a lot of good going forward in order to keep that schedule But also to keep the mental health stuff. I talked about earlier. So that's The scheduling plan just kind of to go off from that the podcast is going to be changing just a little bit It's going to be going back to just tyler and I As a podcast co-host duo Josh and steve Are stepping away from the podcast because we just frankly can't edit for audio streams at the same time It just takes way way too long to edit for for audio and video streams at the same time I do have audio editing help for the podcast now. Thank you, Nate Thank you so very very much But we have to make Nate's life a little bit better because it was taking 10 to 12 hours To edit the podcast and that's just too much for a volunteer to have to do So We're going back to two person stream. You guys what we'll still see josh and steve around the channel every once in a while I'm sure or at least in the comment section. So just know that I haven't killed them off or anything They're not dead. They're still around. They also both have their own youtube channels Which I'll link in various places. So They'll still be around but the podcast itself is going to go back to just tyler and I Hopefully that'll mean short a little bit shorter podcast That means we can stay under an hour, which will be nice also for editing purposes But it'll also allow us to bring things back like challenges where it's kind of hard to do a challenge for four people It was much easier to do a challenge for two people So things like that will also be able to make a return doing it this way And we thank josh and steve for being part of the podcast for this last year And hopefully everyone is happy with the new format of the podcast coming back next week It's coming back next week. It should be fun. So that's happened to do the podcast We're recording again that every saturday in a regular time slot three o'clock p.m. Eastern time And then the edited version will come out monday evenings. Okay, so if you want to have Uh, if you want to watch the edited version or you want to listen to the edited version You'll be able to do that on monday's going forward. That's just that was just way we give Plenty of time to edit the podcast even with only two audio streams That way he gets a little bit extra time and it doesn't feel rushed and it can be a better job and all that stuff So that's that's the way that's going to happen with the podcast So that takes care of podcasting schedule and video schedule In terms of actual content. I have some things that I would like to talk about so i'm going I have a Pine phone pro now I've recorded one video about that so far that should be coming up sometime this week I believe it's going to be published on wednesday Wednesday evening and i'll be doing several videos on the pine phone over the course of the year So if you're interested in in linux hardware and you're you want to hear me talk about that You'll be in luck because i'm going to start talking about that just a little bit more And we'll get into deep dyes like how to actually flash a different operating system or different distro Onto the device because right now I have no clue how to do that And I want to learn so that should be a fun video to make also I talked about those distro review distro first look things that I didn't really care for I have found a way to make those a little bit more interesting for me and that is to actually use the distros Who knew before I would you know install it and then do an initial first look sight unseen and well You know that has its charm sometimes it got boring after a while So what I've decided to do is actually install so I'll record the installation on hardware I'm going to do actually on hardware. I got a laptop here. I got a capture card that actually works this time And I've already shot one of these so it's actually going to work I can record the install and then what I'll do is just stop the recording and then I'm going to use the actual distro for you know up 9 or 10 hours or a couple days however long it needs to be just More than 20 minutes is what we're looking for here. I don't have an actual time I'm not going to look a long-term review So it's not going to be like a month long or whatever But you know a few hours or you know a day or two and then I'll come back to finish the recording And I'll be able to actually tell you how it runs on hardware how it games a little bit How it actually functions when actually using the damn thing Instead of me just saying hey, you know, here's a new distro based on Debian It has all of these applications installed the end. Uh, that's not very useful to anyone I don't think and I've talked about that before on the channel So I think that by actually using it for a couple days or a couple few hours even whatever I can actually make a more informed video and I think that'll make it more interesting Not only for you guys but for me. So those will be coming back In the new year or in this new year And it should be interesting. I'm going to try to do one of those a month I don't plan on overwhelming you guys with new distros. I don't really don't think I need to do that So one a month or so and that'll be that the other distro related videos that I do are the long term reviews Now I have been working on my nyx os long term review since I think october Maybe november, but I think it was either late september or early october where I started using nyx And I have nyx installed on this pc. That's in front of me. It's on a extra hard drive I have installed on the standing desk, which you guys can no longer actually see it is actually still back there Just the camera is no longer, you know, in it's not no longer in frame. Uh, so it's been installed that it's on the main disc on that so I've been using that as the primary operating system there And on various laptops. I have a couple different laptops that I use in different places in the house So I've been using nyx os now for Two or three months and I plan on using it for three more months after this So I will be releasing that review in March sometime. I'm not going to say what time of march will be there We're going to aim for mid-march sometime before my birthday. We'll see how it goes there I have no legitimate and you know firm plans for when but it's going to be marchish sometime and uh, oh boy Guys, that's going to be one hell of a review. I have many many many many thoughts on nyx os so many thoughts Uh, some of them positive some of them definitely positive But I also have a lot of negative and weird things to say about it because it is a very weird Distribution, let's just put it that way So if you're interested in that you haven't already and you've made it 20 minutes into this Long rambling video that I've made make sure you hit the subscribe button because you don't want to miss that I will also be doing two other long-term reviews this year Uh, one of them is still a mystery to all of us. I don't haven't decided yet Which I way I want to go to and the other one is either going to be micro os which is open sewers is immutable distro Or it will be gentoo Now I have done a 30 day gentoo long term long term review before But I haven't done one that is as long as I do them now So I will install gentoo on my main machine on the extra hard drive I'll install gentoo on the computer behind me if that's the way that I decided to go And that should be a you know a joy because I've used obviously gentoo Before I've used vanilla gentoo. I've used red core before And I think it'd be probably good for me to take another long term look at it But we'll see how that goes if that's the way I decided to go or I'll go with the The micro os or aon or whatever it's called these days If you have a choice on which where I go after nyx os leave a comment in the comment section below And I'll take those into account so Those will happen and then beyond that there are a couple other places that I want to kind of take off Focus on for the new year. So I'm going to be covering more Applications. So Linux based and open source applications. I'm going to make more videos about those I would like to bring back some kind of list video like I did before where I talked about the top five Linux app for january 25. I'd like to do something like that again. I don't know I'm not very good at keeping those going You know, I tried to reboot them a couple months ago. It didn't work out because you know again lazy bastard But you know, I I want I like I like doing those videos. So I'm going to try to bring something like that back We'll see how that goes So I'm going to be talking more about applications. I also want to do more window manager stuff So I've kind of gotten away from the window manager stuff But there are new they're not really new window managers But there's window managers out there that I haven't made a lot of videos on so things like herpes love wm I want to make some more stuff about dwm. I haven't made good new dwm content in very long time I want to talk about sway and hyperland and some of the wailing compositors that are out there dwl like that And I want to talk about things I haven't talked about since I started the channel things like specter wm And uh left wm. I'd like to try both of those again, which I haven't tried in ages So there'll be more window manager content coming up Sometime this month and going forward into the year because I'm really excited about trying some different window managers I've been in x-mone ad for a very long time and have I've been in I've been in x-mone ad for so for so long I think I have stock home syndrome because I'm starting to actually understand Haskell a little bit and that is just the scariest thing ever because I don't like haskell I didn't before I started using it and now I I can't say that I like it But I like it more than I did and that Definitely stock home syndrome definitely Help me rescue me. I need I need different window managers q-tile. Please stop crashing for the love god. All right, so that's another place that I want to Focus on and the last one that I want to talk about Is just kind of getting getting into more how-to stuff now how-tos don't traditionally do well because they don't apply to everybody But I want to get into some doing some more some more of those Again to kind of get into in depth of how using linux in different ways and how to do different things on linux I think that that can be fun. I enjoy making those videos So I'm going to do do those again and I suppose that was I did and finally in for them But I also like to do some rising videos. I know I'm not supposed to call it rising theming videos. Whatever I'd like to do some of those I enjoy the time lapses and the speed runs of of theming my desktop environment or my window managers I like doing those. I know they're not the most popular amongst you guys But I like doing them so I'm going to do a few of them I won't overload the content schedule with them. I promise But I'll be doing some maybe one a month or so maybe one every other month whatever And that's another thing that I'd like to do. So that's all coming up in 2024 I think I have some really good stuff planned I have some good stuff on my list of videos that I already want to make so I have a good Focus on what I want to do for the new year So that was a really long and rambly videos But these are always long videos because I kind of just sit down and I have a chat with you guys So probably could just do a maybe next year. I'll just do this in a live stream What do you guys think of that leave a comment in the comment section below if you'd like to see that Hashtag youtuber anyways, that's it for this for this one. Thank you guys again. So very much for Watching my channel over the course of the last three years. I can't believe I'm well into my third year of doing this And that I have over 40,000 subscribers That's just when I started this channel guys I didn't expect to have anybody watch and I was just using this as a backup platform for the podcast So that I didn't have to host it every episode on aws That's all this was and then I made a first video it was a zen wiki video You guys want to see something highly entertaining go watch my zen wiki video It's the very first real video that I ever published I had some podcasts before that but man that thing is horrendous And the funny thing is is that my videos remained horrendous for months after that They didn't improve whatsoever they like even once I started appearing on camera I didn't really do any editing I didn't do any editing and you can tell I was like I was using um And aws and ya knows all over the place. So it's been I have gotten a little bit better But I still ramble like a a drunk sailor Or drunk or something Anyways, that's it for this one If you want to do any supporting of the podcast or the channel whatever The best way to do so and the frees way to do so is leave a thumbs up on the video that you're watching It really does help so do that and I appreciate it Thanks to everybody who does support me on patreon you guys are all absolutely amazing Thanks for all your support throughout this year and last year in the year before So thank you so very much for that I truly do appreciate it and I should actually switch to The end screen credits now so you can actually see all the people who do support me on patreon You can co and kofi and all the places you can support me monetarily So thank you so very much for that if you want to check out merch shop at the linuxcast.org You find t-shirts and hats and hoodies and all that stuff all that goes directly to help the channel So if that's a way you want to support me you can or patreon.com slash linuxcast Thanks everybody for watching again. Have a happy happy happy new year, and I'll see you next time