Familiarity, control, substance

The tendency of the computer interface veers towards control; an interplay of control between the user and what is both possible and permissible within layer on which we're engaging the device. I think its common among many of us free software enthusiasts to go deep into the rhythm of controlling and improving and refining systems. I do this often, and I often refine and refine my processes, whether it's pleasing filing and permissions structures, well-designed backups and other automated processes such as regular rsyncs in cron-jobs, version control in git repositories, a few handy aliases, maybe a handful of Ansible playbooks for cross-system management, all the mastery of dotfiles, etc.

Recently, I got an old laptop (my secondary laptop) back from a friend I'd been lending it to while he was finishing his studies. I had given him a simple Debian install running gnome while his Macbook crashed a few months back and he needed a device for the last few months of his course. Not being a regular user of Debian-based systems (or desktop environments, for that matter), when I got the device back I let it sit for a little while before deciding on setting it up again for myself (truth be told, this is actually my favourite device - it's low-spec, lightweight, durable, perfect - unlike my other 'primary' device which is hi-spec, hi-dpi, bells & whistles. Great and alluring but... doesn't get as back to basics as I now realise I would ideally like for most of my computer use (n.b. my plan, with any future device purchases, is to target only recycled devices)).

As an Arch user across my primary device and the handful of little DIY servers I run (a couple of self-hosted RasPis serving a few functions, this VPS in geminispace and some other community project servers) the obvious choice was to roll out Arch again and rsync all my well-tuned dotfiles and re-deploy my habits. But, you know, I'd been wondering about BSD OS's for a while and thought I'd give this a shot. So I fired up a freeBSD install, for the first time ever, and got the machine set up with full-disk encryption and installed a few packages via ethernet — and that's just about where I'm at for now. I'm presented with a few hurdles with WiFi drivers and other aspects of unfamiliarity that I realise are... 'slowing me down'.

...but wait. That's a good thing. In the unfamiliarity of the new system (small example: simply trying to mount a USB and failing until I realised I needed to specify the filesystem type) I'm able to break out of my own tendencies of control and habit and routine, and make the interface and the computer 'weird' again, foreign, otherwordly. Okay so, admittedly another *nix-based system isn't lightyears away from what I'm used to in terms of familiarity, but I'm no expert, so being cast into any degree of unfamiliar territory in this space certainly feels like I'm somewhat out of my depth or out of my control. And here I remember how useful it is in computing, for me, to break habits and familiarty, and operate outside of 'full customisation and control' as the defacto approach to computing. Sure its fun and satisfying to vamp a device and perfect your interface or windows manager, but I'm actually more interested in getting into the bare-bones of the thing and learning about it - to keep opening up the engine rather than glossing over another coat of wax on the hood. So for now: I'm into this new unfamiliarity and where it's leading me or what it's making me (re)consider about what I want from personal computing time anyway. Maybe it's not about reaching for perfect systems' design - maybe its keeping the substance of things raw and ascetic, conceptual and instructive.

~ flow

Tags: #defamiliarisation #interface #freebsd #archlinux