 Welcome to another edition of HaitiDT. HaitiDT is a series of videos I do where I respond to viewer questions and comments. These viewer questions and comments typically come from comments on the videos on YouTube and on Odyssey or through messages on Mastodon, Reddit, or sometimes through email. And the very first question I want to read is, Haiti, with Audacity now being owned by a large corporation and making very questionable decisions, is it time to start looking for a new audio editor? And he's probably asking this because everyone knows I use Audacity, I've made videos about Audacity in the past and I think I even link to my favorite pieces of open source software that I use in the show description of all of my videos. Audacity is listed in those show notes. And it's a fantastic piece of software, one of the best pieces of free and open source software on the planet. They were recently bought by a large company and this company immediately tried to implement telemetry into Audacity. They were trying to have this opt out telemetry, right? It was turned on by default and the free and open source community, we don't like telemetry. And people complained loudly and the Audacity team reversed decision on adding that telemetry. But you know, people are wondering, hey, how committed is the Audacity team, the new company behind it? How committed are they to free and open source software ideals? Well, probably they're not committed at all because they did proprietary software before and now they just happened to own this piece of free and open source software. So do you need to go look for alternatives? Probably not because Audacity is still the gold standard of free and open source audio editors. And if it ever gets to the point where the community really needs to do something, what will happen is we're going to fork Audacity. It's going to happen. It's probably going to happen within the next six months. The community is just going to be up in arms about something else and they're just going to fork it, rename it and go on under a new name and we'll be just fine. That's the great thing about free and open source software is it never really dies. It'll keep going. Now, if you wanted to check out other alternative free and open source audio editors, a good one to check out would be ocean audio. Ocean audio is not nearly as powerful as Audacity. It doesn't have as many plugins and as many filters and things like that. But if you do basic audio editing, which is really all I do, I do noise reduction, normalization, compression, amplification, but if that's all you do, then ocean audio is perfect for that. And the next question is, hey, DT, can you recommend a middle ground between Ubuntu and all of its derivatives and hardcore distributions like Arch and Gen2 Slackware and things like that? I love your videos, smiley face. All right, I appreciate the kind words there. Now, is there a middle ground between the new user-friendly distributions like Ubuntu and Mint and elementary and Nimx and OpenSusa and things like that? Is there a middle ground before you get to the really specialized distribution? They're not specialized, but where you have to pick and choose all of your software yourself or you build it from the ground up like Arch, Gen2 and Slackware and things like that? No, not really. You can't really have a middle ground between the Ubuntu-based distributions and things like that and something like Arch because you're trying to find a middle ground between distributions that basically are pre-installed with a desktop environment and a suite of applications and have made all the decisions for you and then distributions that, hey, we're not making any decisions for you. You build your Linux distribution, how you want it, install the programs that you want and the services you want. There's no real middle ground. You can't really have a middle ground there. It's kind of like, if a woman is pregnant, she's pregnant and she's not pregnant, she's not pregnant. Is there a middle ground between being pregnant and not pregnant? No, not really. To be honest, the next logical step from the new user-friendly distributions like Ubuntu and Mint is try some of the Arch-based distributions that come with an installer like Manjaro, like Arco. Try those, but honestly, the command line install of Arch is not hard. I've made videos on it in the past. You can be up and running with an Arch installation in about 30 minutes, no problem. Just read the Wiki, enter a few things at the command line and you'll be fine. And the next question is, hey, DT, what kind of music do you like and why is it Mongolian throat singing? Okay. So I often do get these kinds of personal kind of questions, you know, not tech related in any way. People are interested, hey, what kind of music you like, what kind of movies you like, what books do you like, things like that. So for music, I like pretty much anything before like the mid-1990s. So especially with rock music, I like, you know, anything from the 60s, 70s and 80s, like those three decades, I'm down with, you know, and I started with the 60s, you know, I was born in the 70s, but my mother, she loved, you know, oldies kind of music 50s and 60s and she especially loved like the Motown records from the 60s. So I listened to a ton of that growing up just because that's what she listened to. So I'm really versed in 60s music, 70s music, obviously being born in the 70s and really growing up in the 80s. I loved all the 80s rock, the 80s hair bands, the new wave style music and all of that, loved all the power ballads. Once we got into the 1990s, I kind of turned the radio off because, you know, that was the rise of grunge. Didn't care for grunge. And then when people started really not being talented singers anymore and talented musicians, computers took over, right? You started hearing a lot more drum tracks rather than real drummers. And you can tell the difference. It doesn't sound good. It has no soul and people that can't sing, you know, they're using auto tune and they think it sounds good. It actually doesn't sound good at all. Auto tune, you know, being able to sing in and out of tune, sometimes purposely sing out of tune or slide in tune on some pitches is actually very musical, you know, and that actually can add some passion to a song, right? And these days, I just find modern music with all the computer filters and the drum tracks and synthesized sounds and everything. I just find it completely lifeless and dead. Moving on. Hey, DT, what's your views on Wingit? The Windows Package Manager. So I haven't used Windows in many, many years. I'm strictly a Linux user. I have been for like 13, 14 years. I don't know anything about modern versions of Windows or Mac OS 10. I mean, the last time I had a computer that actually was a Mac was before Mac OS 10 even existed. I mean, we're talking about the early 1990s. That was a completely different era for that operating system. So I really don't know anything about the Windows Package Manager. I'm very happy that they have a Package Manager finally. One of the things I'm really proud of is the fact that, you know, Linux really gets things right first and then Windows finally adopts it, you know, decades later. Like, you know, in Linux, we had escalated privileges way before Windows ever thought about it, you know, where you actually had to enter root passwords to do important things like install and remove software and execute scripts and things like that, where, you know, Windows was like 20 years after the fact before they got something like that. Same thing with virtual workspaces, you know, you got all these virtual desktops, you know, that are built into all our desktop environments and window managers. And it's been like that for 30 years probably. And it took forever for Windows to finally get that stuff. Same thing with the Package Manager. You know, we've had Package Managers in Linux for like 25 years. You know, and now 25 years later, Windows, hey, maybe we need a Package Manager, you think? And the next question, Haiti, when are you doing another Fast and Furious movie? Okay, we'll skip that question. Haiti is the same thing for RPM repos. Can one host a RPM repo in GitLab or GitHub? So what he's asking here is, I now have my own arch repository that I host on my GitLab. And just for my personal arch packages, because my some of my personal arch packages were removed from the AUR moderators at the AUR didn't think some of my packages belonged in the AUR. There's a set of criteria you have to meet to be in the AUR. And I guess my packages were, you know, personal customized builds of my suckless builds. And they didn't think those belong there fair enough. So I created my own third party arch repository. And I hosted on my GitLab. And I've had a ton of questions, not just from this guy, but I've had a ton of people ask me, Hey, can I do the same thing for Debian repositories, Ubuntu repositories, Fedora repositories, etc, etc. I'm sure you can. I don't use those distributions. And I haven't tried to set up a repository for those distributions. These days, I'm heavily invested in, you know, the arch ecosystem, because that's what my workstations run. And that's what I do all my work on. Can you have a third party RPM distribution? Absolutely. I don't know, again, personally, how to do it because I haven't done it. I know it's possible because I've seen people talk about it on the internet. Just do a quick duck duck go search on third party RPM repo. And I bet you get a million results. Same thing with Debian repositories. I know in Ubuntu, a ton of people ask me about a personal Ubuntu repository, guys, check out PPAs because that's what a PPA is. That's your own, basically, your own private personal repository. And the next question, Hey, DT, have you tried Artix Linux yet? So this is weird. Artix, I guess, is becoming more and more popular here in recent months, because I've gotten this question like hundreds of times. Hey, DT, have you heard of Artix? Have you tried Artix? Do you know about Artix? And obviously, I've probably tried a couple of hundred different Linux distributions on video on this channel, right? I've made almost a thousand videos, you know, probably 200, 250 of them are me looking at various Linux distributions. So chances are, when you ask me a question, Hey, DT, have you tried insert name of distribution? Yes, I've tried it. Chances are I made videos about it. And in the case of Artix, if you actually did a search on YouTube or on Odyssey, you would find my videos about Artix from like three or four years ago. Now, if people want to know my opinions of Artix, Artix is just Arch. It is 100% Arch. It's just they strip out system D and put in run it or open RC. And that's all it is. It's like Dev1. Dev1, you know, it comes down to when Debian and Arch both decided they were going to switch away from their old init systems and move to system D. You know, when Debian decided that, there was a small portion of the community that hated that decision. So they forked Debian and created Dev1. When Arch decided to move to system D, the same thing, there were a few people that were very anti system D. So they forked it and created Artix. But it's a Dev1 is essentially Debian, exactly Debian without system D. Artix is essentially Arch. Exactly Arch. It just doesn't have system D. And the next comment, I got this comment about 100 times the other day on my video about the Nixed browser. And it goes something along the lines of this, hey, fool, I don't know any web browsers written in JavaScript. Okay, so people are mad about my thumbnail because in my thumbnail, it's a little bit click baby. I think the thumbnail said something like finally a browser that's written in Lisp instead of JavaScript. And people are like, well, no web browser that I know of is written in JavaScript. That's false, you know, that's flat out false, you know, all the web engines are written in C or C plus plus. Yeah, I get that. And the Nix browser, it uses the Chromium engine, which is written in C plus plus. I wasn't talking about the web engines, you know, you guys, being a little too pedantic. But there's a lot of UI elements to many modern browsers that are actually written in JavaScript. I think you guys, even you guys that left these comments know that, you know, web extensions, you know, typically written in JavaScript, a lot of the UI elements of some of especially the newer browsers like Vivaldi, I think uses a lot of JavaScript, you have electron based web browsers out there. Now, of course, electron is all JavaScript things like the men browser, for example, you know, there's a lot of these hipster browsers out there that implement a lot of JavaScript. And I think you guys know this, obviously, I can't say finally, a web browser that implements some stuff in Lisp instead of some stuff in JavaScript, because that adds a whole bunch more words to the thumbnail, I have to, you know, you're limited on the amount of words you can you can fit into a thumbnail, right? You have to do short concise sentences. And so I understand the critiques, but keep in mind, it's a YouTube thumbnail. And I think I think you guys knew the point I was getting at. And some of you guys, man, you guys are really sticklers for details. And the next question, hey, DT, could you tell me what audio interface you're using? I need to buy one. I'm thinking about the Focusrite clear it, but I'm not sure it will work with Linux. The one you have probably does work with Linux. Okay, so audio interfaces like the Focusrite clear it, I'm not familiar with that device. Will it work with Linux? Yeah, it should work with no problem audio interfaces and mixing boards. It's kind of old school technology that they don't really care about your operating system. They all have a USB interface. So you just, you know, via USB cable, plug it into any computer Linux included, and it should recognize that device just fine yet. So you don't have to worry about audio equipment and whether it works with Linux. I'm talking about the old school analog style audio equipment, you know, compressors and EQs and things like that. All of that obviously interfaces with a mixing board typically. And then the mixing board just plugs in via USB to a computer and it works just fine on Linux. So, so no worries there. The Focusrite clear it is the one you want to go with. Absolutely go with it. You're asking me what I use right now on my audio server rack. I have a Mackie pro pro FX 12. That's a 12 channel mixing board. But I do have an audio interface. Actually, I have a Focusrite. I have the Focusrite 2i2 audio interface. It's a great little audio interface is small enough. It could be portable. You carry it around with you, but it's a great beginner audio interface, especially when you're first getting into XLR microphones. And the final question that I want to address today is hey, DT notepad plus plus recently dropped being due to censorship issues thoughts. So I've never really used notepad plus plus because it's Windows software. It is free and open source software. It's licensed under the GPL. And because it's free and open source software, you know, they kind of stand for the ideals of free and open source software, right? And being did something that kind of ticked off the notepad plus plus developers the other day. I guess notepad plus plus interfaces with being as a search engine for some things, probably searching for help information or something like that. I'm not really sure. But anyway, notepad plus plus uses being and they decided to switch from being to go the other day because being there was a very big controversial story about being censoring certain images on their search engine. A few days ago, we had the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square incident in China years ago where the man stood in front of a moving tank and calls the tank to stop. It's a very powerful historic kind of image. We've got video and photos of that. And because on the anniversary, it was a big news story. A lot of people were going to the search engines and typing tank man as a search engine. Now that's what the photo has kind of become known as this tank man. When you searched for tank man on being on that day, the anniversary of Tiananmen Square, what you got was no images return, no images found. They wouldn't show you that image. They were censoring it. They were probably meant to censor that only in China as my guess, but it was actually censored everywhere around the world. And people were immediately put off by that. They're like, why are you censoring the search engine? Why are you censoring this, this man fighting for freedom in China, fighting against oppression? And the notepad plus plus developer. So he was very put off by that. So he replaced being with duck duck go. Now, my thoughts on all this is notepad plus plus is open source software. It's licensed under the GPL, but here's the thing. Notepad plus plus, you're fighting against censorship from Microsoft who owns Bing. You create you create a piece of software that only runs on Microsoft Windows, right? Notepad plus plus does not have a Linux version that I know of. It doesn't work, right? There's there's no Mac version. I don't think no VSD version, of course, right? It's strictly a Windows piece of software. So you don't like some of the stuff that Microsoft is doing. You're creating your piece of software and you only make it work on Windows. So I would say that's a little hypocritical. The other thing is the source code for notepad plus plus is hosted on GitHub. GitHub is also owned by Microsoft, right? So notepad plus plus is kind of tied at the hill, you know, with Microsoft. Like you're all in with Microsoft all the time. So I would say it's kind of an empty gesture what the dev did, you know, we're going to switch out Bing with Duck Duck Go. And guess what? Duck Duck Go, guess where they pull their search results from? They pull them from Bing. Now before I go, I want to thank a few special people. I want to thank Absi, Dallas, Gabe, Lou, Mitchell, Sandor, Allen, Akami, Archfiend, 30, Chuck, David, the other David, Dylan, Gregory, Lewis, Erion, Paul, Polytech, Scott, Steven, Spin, Wes, Willie, Gregory. I think I missed your name too. I may have missed a couple of names there. I do apologize, but I want to thank each and every one of these people. These are my highest tier patrons over on Patreon without these guys. This episode of Haiti would not have been possible. I also want to thank 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 the DistroTube channel is sponsored by you guys, the community. I couldn't do what I do without you guys. If you'd like to support my work, please consider doing so. Look for DistroTube over on Patreon. All right, guys. Peace.