Computing Successes

There are some things that are truly well made, and let's not only list the Computing_Fails

Short List

• apt - apt or apt-get or aptitude, as a package manager does something that Windows would never do. It makes the computer instantly a power user's tool. I would argue that Apt is what makes Debian valuable. Because the rest of Debian is not specially better than other Linux distributions (the configs are handled better in Red Hat, or Openwrt), but apt is very well maintained, and it makes the distribution what it is.

• openwrt - It's used by starlink, and that is all that needs to be said. Openwrt, is simple to maintain (text config files), lean (like alpine, given it's based on the similar non-glib Buildroot), and it is reliable. It has to be - since it's a router OS. The only bad thing I have to say about openwrt is the discourse forum, but that doesn't impact the OS (to be fair - they used to have a good forum before it was hacked or corrupted).

Notable Mentions

• Gimp - GIMP does a lot of what Photoshop does, and as long as they don't nerf it, it is great (if they nerf it, you can just use an old Docker release).