• 13 Oct, 2025 *

Simple stuff lasts, usually, because complexity - especially useless complexity - is the worst enemy of reliability: each moving part you add to something that works is a potential new point of failure. Sometimes complexity is needed and worth the risk, more often not.

For many reasons, obviously, a permacomputing approach leads to tech simplicity, especially in software. Seen from this point of view, modern mainstream softwares (apps, OSes) are a nightmare of useless complexity, with many functions and components adding nothing (positive) to user experience. Mostly, these functions are there to add enough shiny stuff to "justify" upgrades and subscriptions.

This is also why leaving mainstream software behind is a more and more appealing option: it’s not "using software" anymore, it’s an abusive relationship where the user is the weaker part. The obvious alternative - Linux - is still full of moving parts, but at least they make sense, most of the times. In the Linux world, also, there’s still the idea that you can/should use a specific software tool for a specific task: more simplicity, more resilience, less (if any) useless functions.

Can we do better - I wondered - while still keeping a viable working platform for day by day activities? In this search of more conceptual and architectural simplicity, I got on the shores of the BSD archipelago. The history of BSD(s) is interesting but beyond our scope here, it’s enough to say that BSD has always been appreciated for its nonsense and reliability.

As a Unix, BSD can’t be defined "simple": it isn’t. But it always gives a sense of consistency in its architecture and approaches, even as a born-for-servers platform that’s not been completely tamed in its desktop form. For those who - like me - got to know personal computing through CLIs, the BSD standard environment is a breath of old but fresh air: CLI forces you to do one thing at a time (well... more or less), with focused tools. It’s always been this way, but GUIs today are so obvious that sometimes we forget that the desktop metaphor often adds nothing to the user experience.

Should you try a BSD? If you’re open to learn new stuff and to solve some problems, yes. Download one of the classical versions (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD), install it on a dedicated old-ish spare computer, use it via CLI, then learn how to add a desktop environment (it’s a good first exercise in BSD taming). But try to follow the CLI spirit, leaving the GUI optional and not starting it at boot.

Let me be clear: you’ll have to study if you want to play with all the possibilities of a BSD machine. But this is also one of the mosti important principles connected to permacomputing: the more you learn things about the technology you use, the more agency you have on it. Modern techbro/corpo computing wants you to do exactly the opposite: know nothing, have no agency, just use passively what other think you should.

"But I can do the same with any other OS", you could say. True. But you’re not forced to, and with mainstream platforms you’re even actively discouraged to try. Linux is the only OS wide open to tinkering, but the fragmentation of Linux platforms doesn’t help (BSD are much more consistent). And let’s be honest: the "my linux is more linux than yours" vibe is another issue hard to ignore in the community.

So, try a BSD. Play with it for some weeks. All in all, if it’s not your thing, to go back you have simply to reformat a SSD. The experience will in any case plant a new seed in your computing mental garden.