03/22/2025
Pope Leo XIII Tries Out Arch Linux and Then Dies
Two things I feel strongly about are my faith and very specific opinions about technology. So today, I've invited my good friend Pope Leo XIII to try out an operating system and we'll see what his thoughts are. So, without the further dues,,, please listen to what Pope Leo XIII has to say below, he is wrintg it, not me .
Me 'n Leo are always messin around. Ignore my artifacting in this pic I was feelin a little off that day haha
First, let me say that I've been using EndeavourOS for about a year now. Think of it as Arch Linux for babies. After Microsoft unveiled Windows 11 and BETA RELEASED a feature that would record AAALLLL of your computer activity and then unsecurely store it, I knew I had to ditch Windows. Hence the Linux stuff.
I'm glad to say that I've been on EndeavourOS for about a year now! Compared to previous Linux experiences I've had, this has been pretty much as smooth as butter. I have an Intel CPU and an AMD GPU, which has turned out to be a very good combination. (I tried installing flavors of Linux on my NVIDIA-GPU-based laptop, and that was a nightmare.) I mainly surf the web, watch and listen to stuff, play video games and do the odd website/image/audio/video editing.
So not a professional for many things by any means. I sympathize for people who are being held hostage by Adobe products. So for my use case, it's been perfect. I love messing around in the terminal, and it's unironically the best way to go about installing software. Want to update everything? Type a quick command, no fiddling around waiting for uncessary graphics to load. Edit a bunch of files or pray that ffmpeg DOES WHAT YOU FREAKING WANT IT TO AAAAAHHH? Just commands. Ignore that latter frustration, I wish I was better at ffmpeging. I hope that's a verb.
There are many other people more qualified than I am to tell you why Linux is cool though. And I'll be the first to admit that it still requires a tinkering spirit to want to overcome changing the version of Proton you're using in Steam, or cloning GitHub repos for specific tools/ports/programs/whatever. But what I don't see more people talking about is that this kind of operating system setup is THE MOST CATHOLIC OPERATING SYSTEM.
Please blink your eyes a couple times at that last sentence and clear away any thoughts of Gregorian chant playing every time you boot your PC. (Though, what if...) What I do mean is that Linux is the only major, mass-marketable operating system that embodies the principle of subsidiarity. And where there's catholic social teaching, there's Pope Leo XIII, who first established modern formulations of such things in Rerum Novarum. (This connection to Pope Leo XIII is very intentional, and not just to have an excuse to make the stupid title I gave this article.)
So, why the connection between a dead 19th century pope and Linux? Because technology needs to be more HUMAN-oriented. Right now, it is very CORPORATE or CAPITAL-oriented. Microsoft and Apple (and Google with Android) are some of the most powerful, richest and greediest companies in the world. If you're using one of their computers, your experience with technology is almost completely dictated by them. (10-20 years ago, you may have only said this about Apple's operating systems, but look at the direction Windows is going!) Why should you have no say in your computing experience?
You buy a notebook? That's your domain. Gonna paint on canvas? That's all you buddy. Read a book? Go for it, mark it up. Play on a keyboard? Bang it out, Neil. Why should it be any different with computers?
Now some might say that it requires a lot of work to get a computer working. Of course, of course. Hear the word again: subsidiarity. People in the Linux world already love this word, they just don't know it yet. In fact, there's basically already an entire system and website dedicated to this - git and all the Git* offshoots. Working together at the lowest level possible before escalating it to a higher authority - subsidiarity.
This is how the world/people/government should work too, but our tendency towards laziness gets in the way and we want to shove our responsibilities off onto others. I think especially of the state level in the USA - so many things that families, towns, counties or states have handled before keep getting kicked up the road. Feeding people? "Oh that's the government's responsibility if the individual needs help." Raising kids? "Oh that's the school's job, mandated by the department of education." Being able to interact with people? "Oh internet-type companies will facilitate this so I can like peoples' posts on Facebook every now and then." Huh???
Some context on myself will help, I think. I speak in very very very very very broad terms above. Do you know where I spent the most formative years of my adult life? In what is essentially a little village with a church and a monastery. I walked to everything I needed on a daily basis. I had a car that I used like... 20-40 times a year? Walked to hang with people. Walked to eat. Walked to a job. Walked to class. Walked to church. Walked outside to be in the quiet or to pray. No more than maybe 100 people lived in like a 1-2 mile radius. Not everyone has the ability or means to experience such a life, and I lament this fact. But something like this is probably the ideal life in the minds of many people, as well as probably the Catholic Church at large.
With that background in mind, this kind of low level cooperation, living, laughing, loving is what fulfills people, I think. I'm biased in 100 different ways but dang. Don't you and I and so many authors, artists and other talking heads all realize the pitfalls of living in large cities as we do compared to something like the above?
But imagine if this village-like model was the way that companies ran. How technology was made. No billionaires having shareholders whisper sweet, poisonous nothings into their ears to drive profits at peoples' expense. Just people knowing one another, making only what we truly need and not manufacturing problems and needs that humanity didn't have a century ago. If people truly knew and cared about each other...
Okay, okay, is this a post about a funny penguin operating system or a manifesto? Certainly, the former. (My lawyers breathe a sigh of relief off-screen.) But what YOU should definitely do is support things like Linux, EndeavourOS and the hundreds and thousands of other smaller projects like these. To live on the HUMAN side of technology, rather than having Bill Gates breathe down your neck. Buy used tech and stop giving money to the corporations and people who need it least and use that money for something else like even financially supporting such projects online, or, even, whoa wild idea, giving some of that to those in need too. No more new iPhones. Hack open an old Android phone and install an open source Android fork - save money and stay human instead of being some company's source of income. Install layer upon layer of adblockers. And for the LOVE OF GOD, STOP FEEDING AI SYSTEMS BY USING THEM! God loves when His creation exercises their own abilities of subcreation... (see J.R.R. Tolkien's 'Letter 153')
With all of that in mind, Pope Leo XIII may rest once more.
Oh shoot, I was gonna ask if Pope Leo XIII preferred Wayland or X11... Dang...
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