Six Months Powered Only by Open Source
For six months, I lived exclusively on open‑source software across work, home, and the road, replacing every familiar proprietary tool with community‑built alternatives. This personal chronicle captures the routines I adopted, the stumbles that taught hard lessons, and the wins that felt like freedom. Join me as I recount honest trade‑offs, unexpected delights, and the steady confidence that came from understanding, shaping, and truly owning the tools that carried every day.
The pledge and boundaries
I promised to use only free and open‑source software for all personal and professional activities, including writing, creative work, communication, finances, and entertainment. Exceptions were limited strictly to low‑level firmware or drivers when absolutely necessary for hardware to function. I detailed every exception, sought community‑approved alternatives, and measured convenience against autonomy. That accountability created clarity, motivation, and a path to iterate without slipping into old, comfortable habits.
Desktop stack that stuck
After trials, I settled on Fedora with GNOME, Flatpak for easy sandboxed installs, and CLI package management for precision. I leaned on LibreOffice, Inkscape, GIMP, Darktable, KDE Connect, and Nextcloud clients, aiming for native performance before browser fallbacks. Updates felt calm, boot speeds solid, and power management respectable on my ThinkPad. Crucially, I documented dotfiles, kept reproducible scripts, and resisted one‑off tweaks that would be impossible to remember six weeks later.
Phone reality check
On mobile, I flashed GrapheneOS to a Pixel, installed F‑Droid and obtained apps from reputable open repositories. Organic Maps, K‑9 Mail, FairEmail forks, and Element carried navigation and messaging duties without data‑hungry trackers. I used open‑source camera apps, synced notes through Nextcloud, and kept notifications sane. The hardest part was resisting convenience when friends shared proprietary‑only links, but honest boundaries and alternative suggestions usually bridged the gap.
Writing, Research, and Collaboration without Lock‑In
Words had to travel well between collaborators, so I built a flexible pipeline with plain‑text first, then rich exports as needed. Markdown, Pandoc, and Zotero formed a trustworthy core, while Nextcloud handled synchronized research folders. For team work, I used Git and Forgejo, embraced Matrix rooms for chat, and stitched tasks together with Kanboard. The result was surprisingly calm: fewer distractions, clearer history, and documents that outlived any single application’s whims.
Words that travel well
I drafted in Markdown using Neovim and Ghostwriter alternatives, with spell‑checking and style suggestions from LanguageTool’s open components. Pandoc produced polished PDF, DOCX, and HTML, ensuring clients could read deliverables without complaint. Citations lived in Zotero with Better BibTeX, making academic collaboration straightforward. Because everything remained plain‑text under the hood, version control became natural, diffs readable, and rewrites less scary. That simplicity encouraged deeper focus and braver edits.
Teams, tickets, and versions
For collaboration, I hosted Forgejo for Git repositories, opened Matrix rooms for real‑time chat, and ran Kanboard to visualize tasks. Webhooks tied commits to cards, while issue templates nudged clearer requests. Even non‑technical collaborators appreciated transparent history and predictable links. When debates arose, we traced decisions across commits and messages, cutting endless email loops. The tooling felt modest yet powerful, encouraging contributions without heavy onboarding or arcane corporate dashboards.
Designing, Editing, and Publishing with Community‑Built Tools
Navigation, Entertainment, and Household Finances
Daily life needed maps, money tracking, and media that respected privacy. Organic Maps and OsmAnd guided walks and drives using OpenStreetMap data. Firefly III and hledger brought budgets into focus. Jellyfin, VLC, and MPD kept entertainment calm, fast, and offline‑friendly. Calibre organized ebooks, while RSS with Miniflux delivered news without ad‑tech. This balance reduced monthly costs, sharpened awareness, and reminded me that convenience does not need surveillance to feel effortless and modern.
Money that finally made sense
I migrated transactions to Firefly III and experimented with hledger’s plain‑text approach. Categories, rules, and dashboards revealed spending habits I had ignored for years. Backups were automatic, exports clean, and privacy first. Reconciling accounts took minutes instead of dread‑filled evenings. When goals felt vague, envelope budgeting clarified choices. Sharing anonymized charts with my partner encouraged practical conversations, not blame. That steady visibility beat fancy interfaces and made planning feel refreshingly adult.
Maps and movement
Organic Maps and OsmAnd delivered turn‑by‑turn guidance, offline regions, and trustworthy routing sourced from OpenStreetMap. I contributed fixes after noticing missing footpaths, and those updates improved routes weeks later. Without account tracking, trips stayed mine, and battery life held strong. Bookmarking grocery staples, bus stops, and bike repairs reduced friction. Even abroad, offline maps felt liberating. Practical, respectful navigation beat attention‑harvesting gimmicks and showed how volunteer data can power everyday reliability.
Privacy, Backups, and Peace of Mind
Living this way pushed security habits from theory into routine. KeePassXC guarded credentials, Bitwarden’s open stack helped families, and age plus GnuPG handled file secrets. WireGuard connected machines, Matrix offered end‑to‑end rooms, and browsers hardened with uBlock Origin and privacy‑respecting defaults. Backups through Borg and Restic ran on schedules and were restored in drills. The payoff was calm confidence: not perfection, but resilience measured by recoveries that actually worked.
Bumps, Fixes, and What Stayed After the Experiment
Not everything was smooth. Office document fidelity occasionally wobbled, certain USB peripherals resisted, and some clients insisted on proprietary meeting platforms. Yet workarounds, patient explanations, and transparent process logs usually solved friction. More importantly, many tools stayed after six months ended because they felt calmer, cheaper, and kinder. If any part resonates or you want configs, leave a note, subscribe for updates, or share your own story so we can improve together.
Complex DOCX files sometimes misaligned in LibreOffice, so I negotiated PDF exchanges earlier or used OnlyOffice Document Server in a container for improved fidelity. For meetings, Jitsi worked great, but some organizations demanded proprietary platforms. I joined through hardened browsers and encouraged future pilots on open systems. Exporting assets in client‑preferred formats, with well‑tested color profiles, minimized surprises. Documented expectations turned potential friction into small, predictable steps rather than late‑night emergencies.
Printers behaved after careful CUPS setup, though scanning needed patience with SANE backends. A spare Wi‑Fi dongle solved chipset headaches on one travel laptop. NVIDIA machines preferred proprietary drivers for performance, documented as a reluctantly accepted exception, while Intel graphics thrived out‑of‑the‑box. Bluetooth audio required profile tweaks for reliable microphones. None of it was catastrophic, but each quirk reminded me to buy with compatibility in mind and keep a tiny toolkit handy.
After the six months, I kept Nextcloud, Matrix, Jellyfin, Darktable, Inkscape, Kdenlive, and a plain‑text writing stack because they felt trustworthy, efficient, and portable. Costs dropped, backups simplified, and collaboration became clearer. I still evaluate new tools through the same lens: open, interoperable, documentable. If you’ve tried similar shifts, share your must‑keeps, send questions, or request deep dives. Community stories sharpen practices, and your experiences could guide the next reader’s brave first week.
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