 Welcome to another edition of Haiti. Haiti is a series of videos I do where I respond to viewer questions and comments, these viewer questions and comments. They typically come from comments on the videos posted on YouTube and on Odyssey. Sometimes these questions and comments come through social media, such as Mastodon or Reddit. Sometimes these questions and comments come through email. And the very first question I want to respond to is actually a whole bunch of the same questions. So recently I released my own Linux distribution. I made an ISO. I called it DTOS. And those first couple of releases were a little buggy. So I've got questions like, hey, DT, I couldn't get DTOS to install. And also, hey, DT, I installed DTOS, but Emacs does not work properly. So the first thing I want to address is that the very first DTOS ISO that I put out was actually the first week of September, right? And that was the very first ISO I created. And there were a lot of bugs in that. There were some major showstoppers in that ISO. So if you downloaded and installed DTOS from that very first ISO, yeah, you probably ran into a lot of bugs because there were issues with users and permissions. Emacs didn't work properly because of permissions. Also, because Emacs, I was trying to ship a customized Emacs with my packages already built and pre-installed on the ISO. And there were some SIM linking issues with that. So if you downloaded that very first ISO from the first week of September, go and get the latest ISO that I released the first week of October, which really addresses all of those Emacs issues. Now, for those of you that can't get DTOS to install, if you're installing it on physical hardware and it will not install on your machine, I'm just going to go ahead and tell you, I can't do much about it. I do know DTOS installs on physical hardware on a lot of my physical hardware because I've installed it on many of my personal machines, test laptops and things like that. Obviously, it installs properly in virtual machines because I install it in a VM all the time, every time I test out DTOS for some reason, right? I do that in a VM. So it does install properly in most cases, but some of you guys are complaining that it's not installing properly on your equipment. I don't have your equipment and quite honestly, I don't want to be a distro maintainer. I released this ISO of DTOS, but still, I am not a distro maintainer. To be a distro maintainer, to do it the right way, it has to be a full-time job. I have to spend several hours every day working on a distribution. I can't do that. Why? Because I spend several hours every day making video content, which is actually what I enjoy doing. I love this job. I would hate being a distro maintainer. I'm not going to do it. So just understand that I can't have two full-time jobs. I can't maintain a distro and also do videos, right? One would have to suffer for the other. And I know some people will come back, well, why can't you make videos about you maintaining a distro? Well, still, I don't think people understand how these videos are made. This video I'm making right now is going to take probably about four to six hours of me planning out the video and getting all the questions that I want to respond to. Recording the video is going to take an hour, hour and a half. Then I'm going to edit the video. That's going to take a couple of hours. I've got to upload the video. I've got to create a thumbnail. All that's probably going to take another hour, right? So it's not like, you know, you can just maintain a distro and turn on a camera and just start recording and boom, magically, everything is done. No, there's still the editing process and the thumbnail process. Now, if you don't take any of that stuff seriously, right, if you're not trying to run a serious channel, right, put out good content, you know, actually, you know, take thumbnails and things like that seriously. Yeah, you could just half ass some videos and then maintain a distro. But then again, your video channel will suffer. You can't do both the right way, right? Yes, just not enough hours in the day. So just know DTOS is a little side project. I do it because so many of you guys asked me to do it. But I am not a distro maintainer. I'm not going to put in any serious work into it. I'll put in a few hours every couple of weeks, right? I don't mind doing that. But a few hours every single day, the rest of my life. No, I have absolutely no interest in that. So just be prepared. If you want to try out DTOS, try it out. It tends to work for the most part for most people is working on all of my equipment, but just know that I'm not going to be your support channel. And DTOS may not be around for the long term. It's not like I'm planning on maintaining DTOS for the rest of my life. Moving on to the next question. Hey, DT, I would be interested in you setting up a basic XOR environment with TWM, XTERM, XDDM, XScreenSaver, etc. I accidentally ended up in TWM on Slackware and a quick Google search gives little in terms of recent results on configuring. So he wants to know how to configure the standard XORG desktop environment or window manager, Tom's window manager TWM and the basic terminal emulator that ships with XORG, which is of course XTERM and the basic login manager, XDDM and XScreenSaver, which sets a screensaver of course in an XORG environment. So these are really basic and really old utilities. TWM is a horrible window manager. It has very, very little functionality and nobody really uses it. It's there as essentially an emergency when you install a default XORG environment without any other desktop environment or window manager. Yeah, you can get into Tom's window manager. I guess all it really is it's it opens up three different XTERM windows. That's really all Tom's window manager is. It's really not designed to be used long term in any way as a proper desktop environment or window manager. So it's not something I would ever want to cover on camera because there's really nothing to it, right? You're I think you're thinking that there's more to TWM than what it is. Again, it's kind of a it's a very basic just an emergency option. If you don't have anything else installed on an XORG server, right, then you get TWM, but it's really just there. So it opens up three XTERMs and then from the terminal, right, that it provides you actually install a proper window manager or a desktop environment. Moving on to the next question. Hey, DT, how's the Moonlander keyboard with all the options for unique key combinations, double taps and macros? I just know you'll have some spiffy settings that compliment DTOS. I'm watching. Okay, so how's the Moonlander keyboard? Great. It's right here in front of me. It's the keyboard I use every day here at my workstation here at my office where I record most of my videos. You guys know I also have the ZSA Ergo dots keyboard on my home computer, which sometimes I do stream, especially live stream from home sometimes. So the Ergo docs and the Moonlander keyboards are still fantastic. The easy plank, which is that small keyboard actually back there on the desk is also another ZSA keyboard that is fantastic. And I actually put the ZSA plank to use a number of times, especially just last weekend. I was out of town for about three days and I took my laptop, but I took the plank keyboard because I prefer using that keyboard rather than my laptop keyboard. And you know, I love these ZSA keyboards and now as far as do I have any really unique key combinations, double taps, macros on these computers, I'm actually pretty basic. Even in my like window manager configs and terminal configs, my dot files, any of you guys check out my dot files. It's not like I go overboard with configuration, right? I'm not one of those people that just tries to add more than what's necessary. I try to get by with the basics for the most part. My VIM configuration, for example, stock VIM with no configuration at all works fine for me. So I'm kind of basic and I'm kind of basic with these programmable mechanical keyboards from ZSA. I don't change too much from the default key configuration. The only thing I changed were the order of the arrow keys. I changed them to make sure that they corresponded with the VIM motion keys because by default, they're a little backwards, right? So I make sure that we have left down up right, just like HJKL for the VIM motion keys. But other than that, I don't really need a lot of keys. I don't use a lot of the special keys on a keyboard anyway. So I'm actually quite comfortable with not using things like I don't use like print and home and insert and any of that stuff. So most of the keys like on a full 110 keyboard, I never use anyway. So I actually don't fool with any of that stuff on any of these keyboards. I also don't create any crazy key combinations as far as my telling window managers, you know, because with the Moonlander and the Ergo Docks and the Plank, I could create some crazy, you know, like five key key bindings for my window managers. But it would be a little, even though it might make sense for me to do that for my keyboard because I share my configuration files with all of you guys. It doesn't make sense because unless you have this particular keyboard and programmed with the same key layouts that I have, you know, you wouldn't be able to use my config. So I try to keep things for the most part kind of basic. Now, overall, I'm a huge fan of these ZSA keyboards, the Ergo Docks, the Moonlander, the Plank. I am very happy that I purchased these rather expensive keyboards. They're not cheap. But honestly, it was worth every penny that I spent on these keyboards. Moving on to the next question, which is another keyboard-related question. Hey, DT, just saw this old video of yours and it reminded me of a question. I have an 84-key keyboard. Does having only 84 keys affect shortcut key bindings in Linux? I'm assuming he's talking about tiling window managers and things like that. Ian goes on to write, or do you just configure it like a standard USA 104 keyboard? I'm thinking of getting a standard keyboard size again. What do you think? I like your old videos because they help me a lot. Well, I appreciate that. Thank you for the kind words. As far as does only having 84 keys affect anything? It shouldn't because that easy plank that's behind me, right, that ZSA keyboard on that desk back there, is a 44-key or 48-key keyboard. I forget. It's a really small keyboard. It's much smaller than your 84-key keyboard. It doesn't affect anything, key bindings, because especially the smaller form factor keyboards, they have layers, meaning there's a special key on it, where now all of the keys on the keyboard have a second function that it switches over to. So if you only have like 40 keys on a keyboard, but you have that layer key, you switch to the second layer, well, all them 40 keys now do a second thing. So it's really like having 80 keys on a 40-key keyboard. Some of them have a third layer you could go to. And so really, you've got like 120 keys. So you're not going to run out of keys on these programmable keyboards. It doesn't matter if you only have 84 keys. That's actually a pretty big keyboard. A standard 104-keyboard or a 110-keyboard. Yeah, that works as well. And if you want to get a full-size keyboard, go ahead. Is it necessary? Not really. You can set all the key bindings that you can think of in your Tiling Window Manager configurations with the small form factor keyboards just fine. Moving on, the next one is a comment. He writes, Hey D.T., my wife says she really likes your voice. L-O-L, smiley face, heart. That's not all she likes. The next question is, Hey D.E.T., thank you. This is one of your best videos. You don't have to answer this, but do you play hockey? And when he says this is one of my best videos, this is a video I did like five or six years ago. Installing open box on a minimal Debian install still gets a ton of views to this day, that particular open box on Debian video. Well, I appreciate you. Your kind words saying it was one of my best videos. And then he asks, Do I play hockey? Well, I live in Louisiana. Most of you guys know that Louisiana being in the deep south here in the U.S. hockey. I've never met anybody that played hockey, right? I don't even know where I would go to even try to play hockey. I'm sure there's a hockey rink somewhere around my city. I wouldn't know where the hell it is. I like it. It's just not, you know, hockey is going to be a cold weather sport for the most part. It's something that people, you know, in Minnesota or some place where Canada would play right down here in the deep southern U.S. hockey. Yeah, that's not what we do. Next up is another comment. Hey D.E.T., I'm shocked you're not using straight.e-l for your Emacs package management. So he's talking about my configuring Emacs series where I've basically built my own Emacs configuration, this particular Emacs setup that I've created by the way does ship out of the box with D.T.O.S. And I use a Emacs package manager called El Paca, which honestly works pretty good. I've been pretty satisfied with it. Now by default, straight.e-l is the standard Emacs package manager that most people that use Emacs, they use straight. So he's shocked that I'm not using it. I don't know why he's shocked. The whole point of Emacs is that you can mix and match whatever kind of programs you want, right? Emacs is essentially almost an operating system. And if you want to install different packages and create your own Frankenstein thing, that's what Emacs is designed for. Emacs is not designed to be this one thing that you give everybody and everybody uses it the same way. No, no, you make your Emacs what you want it to be. Moving on, the next one is another comment, although there is kind of a question buried in his comment. He writes, hey D.T., thank you for teaching command line functions. Hey, well, I appreciate that. I actually enjoy playing around at the command line. So those are some of my favorite videos to make. He also goes on to write, I hate when distros hide root access. Me too. I've learned so much from breaking my systems and reinstalling. That's how I learned Windows 95 and Slackware, which I had learned tiling way back then. By the way, I get deleted a lot, smiley face. So, and this is what I wanted to address the end here. He gets deleted a lot. I'm assuming he's talking about, he writes a lot of comments on my videos, but most of them get deleted. They automatically get deleted. They never show up. Yeah, it's a YouTube problem. It's the reason I don't comment on YouTube much anymore. I used to comment all the time. I'd go around, comment on other content creators' videos, tell them, good job. Keep going, man. Try to help them in the algorithms because comments do help your favorite content creators. But then, I've run into this situation where all of a sudden, all of my comments just get deleted. I post a comment. It never even shows up on that page. I've run into this many times where it's almost like you get shadow banned for a little while, where nothing you do on YouTube shows up as far as comments and your responses and things like that. It's a broken system. YouTube does so many good things as far as being a video content platform. But because it's so popular and so many billions of people around the world actually use the YouTube platform, in many ways, it's gotten to the point. It's so big. It's broken under that weight. It's broken itself. It's so popular. I don't think even a trillion-dollar company like Google can successfully manage it anymore. I'm sorry that your messages sometimes get deleted, but again, there's nothing I can do. It's not a me problem. I rarely actually go and try to moderate my comment section on my YouTube videos. I really don't spend much time doing that anymore. So if you guys are posting messages and they're just getting deleted, every single message you post gets deleted for some reason. Just know you have been tripped up in some way in the YouTube spam filters and algorithms and things. YouTube is the one doing that to you. I can't fix that, unfortunately. And the final question or comment I want to respond to is actually two different questions and comments. First, a question, hey, D.T., why not make a separate channel to discuss non-Linux topics? I'd follow it. And then a comment, okay, but this video isn't about Linux. And that particular comment was about a video I did where why does everyone hate on popular things? I think I titled it Why Does Everyone Hate on a Boom 2 Slash, Linux Mint Slash, SystemD Slash, Manjaro, whatever. But he's right. It was basically how we have a tendency as human beings to hate on things that are popular. It wasn't necessarily really a Linux video. And people have asked this because I sometimes do make off-topic videos. I do wander around with life advice, philosophical kind of videos, and sometimes funny, quirky little videos. And sometimes people do suggest this, hey, why don't you actually make a separate channel for this kind of content? And usually the people that ask this are actually interested in me making more of that kind of content. They want a separate channel where I make more of that content so they can follow that channel. And I might do that at some point. That's not something that I'm going to say I'm going to start tomorrow or next month. But it's probably something I will eventually do probably not too far in the distant future because I could see myself. You know, I've been making these Linux and free and open source software videos now for over six years at this point. I started in October of 2017. Wow, it's been a long time right now. I've made nearly 1500 videos now on the Linux channel. And at some point, you know, will I ever run out of things to say about Linux or free and open source software? No, not really. I could keep making that sort of content, but it does get a little bit monotonous. Sometimes I want to talk about different things. So yeah, we're probably eventually going to do some kind of other channel other than a Linux channel at some point, maybe multiple other channels at some point. So stay tuned with that. And as far as the comment, okay, but this video isn't about Linux. Well, a lot of times when I make a video that's not necessarily about Linux, it's pretty obvious it's not about Linux because of the title or the thumbnail. Yeah, sometimes I'll even put the word off topic in the title or even in the description. So if it's obvious that a video isn't about Linux, and if you only want Linux content, then just don't watch that particular video. That's another thing that's really weird sometimes with viewers on YouTube. And I really don't pay attention to these comments because they're kind of useless comments. Hey, why'd you make this kind of video on this kind of content? I don't want to watch it. Okay, well, don't watch it, right? I made the video on that topic because I wanted to make that video. So I'm happy with it, right? I don't care whether you wanted to watch it or not, right? You either watch it or you don't. And if you're angry about it, that's on you, man. It's not me. And before I go, I need to thank the producers of this episode of HeyDT. And of course, I'm talking about Gabe James Matt, Paul West, Armoredragon, Commander Ingrid, George Lee, Methods Nate, Erion, Paul Peace, Archivador, Realities for Less Red Profit, Roland Solastri, Tulles Devler, Wardgent 2, and Ubuntu and Willie. These guys, they're my high-steered patrons over on Patreon without these guys. This episode of HeyDT would not have been possible. The show is also brought to you by each and every one of these fine ladies and gentlemen, all these names you're seeing on the screen right now. These are all my supporters over on Patreon because I don't have any corporate sponsors. I'm sponsored by you guys, the community. If you like my work and want to see more videos about Linux and free and open source software, subscribe to DistroTube over on Patreon. All right, guys. Peace.