The Cult of Dev: Hollow Wizards of the Machine Age

# The Cult of Dev: Hollow Wizards of the Machine Age A few WAL patrons have asked if Linux is the salvation from Windows 10 EOL (End of Life). To quote Eriol of *The Lost Tales*, "a great tale hangs thereto..." With Windows 10 support ends on October 14, 2025, many in our community face a choice: upgrade to Windows 11 (with its increased hardware requirements and privacy concerns), stick with an unsupported system, or venture into the unknown realm of Linux. The promises are seductive—freedom from corporate overlords, complete customization, and a return to computing sovereignty. But as with all quests, the reality proves more treacherous than the legends suggest. ------ ## The Journey Into the Labyrinth Let me tell you something about Linux—not as a developer or a tinkerer, but as one who has walked its winding paths and returned to share the tale. Imagine setting out on a quest inspired by tales of freedom and mastery, only to find yourself trapped in a labyrinth of cryptic commands and fragile systems. Like Bilbo leaving the comforts of Bag End, I ventured forth seeking adventure—but discovered instead the shadowy depths of Moria. Standing now at the East Gate (as it were) near the end of these travails, I recently came across two voices—one mythic, one modern—that crystallized the problem. ## The Sandbox Delusion The first was a [short video](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/PYjaw_hGs60) by someone calling himself *Reluctant Anarchist*. In it, he described why people switch to Linux: the psychological exhaustion from Windows, the breath of fresh air, the excitement of using the terminal for the first time. He spoke of it like it was a child's discovery—"it almost feels like being a kid again." That statement encapsulates everything wrong with the standard-issue Linuxite mindset. For them, Linux is a toy to tinker with, the terminal is a roller coaster ride, and the whole experience is framed as thrilling because it is new and different. They don't approach it as a tool of sovereignty or an altar of real power. Instead, it's an exciting sandbox in which to play when they're bored with Windows on their "spare laptops." Here's my reality: I'm not here for childish thrills. I seek tools of sovereignty, not toys of nostalgia. I don't have "spare laptops" lying around, and that phrase alone reeks of unexamined economic privilege. Most people have one computer that needs to work reliably for their job, their communication, their life. Breaking it for "learning experiences" isn't adventurous—it's a luxury only available to those with backup systems and backup time. What do I want instead? An OS that works like a refrigerator—you plug it in, it runs, it doesn't require a degree in electrical engineering to operate. I don't want to become a developer any more than I want to become a refrigerator repairman. I want tools that serve my actual purposes, not hobbies that consume my life. ## When the Promise Breaks In the video *"[I switched to Linux and it's bad](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwYCcowCeXI)"* (July, 2025), a long-time Linux user details what happens when you expect the system to *work*. Not to impress you with endless knobs, but to do professional work. > "Even for programs that are natively supported on Linux, they are bad." His workflow collapsed under the weight of missing features: OBS lacked basic audio capture, ProtonVPN had no split tunneling, DaVinci Resolve required converting a 7GB video into 760GB just to edit it. > "Taking a 7 gig file and making it nearly a terabyte to edit it is **not** a solution." He tried to stay on Linux. He wanted to. But his verdict was brutal: > "Every time I come back to it, I lower my expectations." The mythic promise failed. Not just because of missing codecs or odd shortcuts—but because even simple tasks like controller support required dead GitHub repos and conflicting forum advice. NVIDIA drivers broke in different ways depending on the distro. OBS hotkeys stopped working under Wayland unless you manually refocused windows. > "When people say Linux is customizable, it's like... yes, to an extent. But basic stuff can't be changed." What he described wasn't a learning curve. It was a *slow attrition of sovereignty*. A thousand papercuts that turned "freedom" into friction. ## The Fundamental Fragility When people argue against Linux, they often point to surface skirmishes like systemd controversies, Rust debates, or Wayland incompatibilities. But these are distractions. The real, underlying reason Linux is unsuitable for most users is its fundamental *fragility*. Unlike Windows or the BSDs, Linux is not a cohesive operating system. It's a kernel plus thousands of bolt-on packages, each developed independently with loosely enforced standards. This creates an ecosystem where changing one component can silently break unrelated parts of your system. Installing a single desktop widget can destabilize your entire interface or corrupt configurations beyond recovery. For ordinary users, this fragility is catastrophic. Even the video's creator—clearly no novice—couldn't change basic interface elements like the on-screen volume display position or fix how Alt+Tab worked across monitors. These aren't edge cases. They're foundational failures that reveal Linux's customization promises as more myth than substance. > "The only time that it's ever going to maybe be perfect is if you have a laptop and the most that you do is word processing and web browsing." ―――――――――― **Sidebar: HaikuOS and the Humility of Function** Ironically, for users whose needs are modest—writing, web browsing, file management—Linux isn't always the lightest or most stable solution. Systems like [HaikuOS](https://www.haiku-os.org/) make no grand promises and deliver only what they claim. They don't break when you breathe on them. They don't seduce you with infinite customization that turns into endless troubleshooting. And they don't pretend to be for everyone while silently punishing the disabled, the underfunded, or the uninitiated. Moreover, Haiku site is honest: Haiku is still in beta (R1/beta5), but for light desktop+writing tasks, its design restraints can feel saner than a break-happy Linux desktop. Haiku embodies the humility of function—it says: "Here's what we do, and we do it well." Linux culture, by contrast, promises: "You can do anything—if you become one of us." The difference reveals everything about their respective relationships to power, accessibility, and honest communication. For the WAL community specifically, Haiku's approach mirrors what we seek in mythic wisdom: clarity over complexity, function over performance, and honest limitation over false promises of infinite possibility. ―――――――――― ## The Hollow Wizards: A Cultural Analysis This difference in mindset—between the sandbox tinkerers and those seeking true sovereignty—mirrors an ancient dichotomy: the monastic scribes versus the warrior shamans. Monastic scribes were cloistered, literate men serving institutional continuity. Their rituals were confined to illuminating texts and preserving doctrine. They found meaning in the process itself—the careful formation of letters, the preservation of knowledge, the maintenance of tradition. But they rarely ventured beyond their scriptorium walls. Warrior shamans, in contrast, dwelt in the liminal wilds, using their tools as implements of vision, power, and transformation. Their worth lay not in their rituals but in their results—healing, protection, guidance through treacherous terrain. They mastered their tools to serve larger purposes. Linux dev culture mirrors the scribes. They have their rituals: dotfiles configs, ricing, CLI mastery. They have their priesthood: kernel developers, window manager maintainers. They have their sacred texts: wiki pages, man pages, forum threads. And their salvation comes through discipline—"I learned Vim and became a wizard." But where is their true power? They sit, reciting sacred commands, never stepping into the mythic wild. They equate becoming a dev with apotheosis, as if typing `sudo pacman -Syu` transforms them into transcendent beings. But a true wizard knows his tools are just tools. These dev cultists think their tools *are* their power. Their myth is simple: "I was a clueless normie. Then I learned Linux, Vim, and TypeScript, and now I'm a god!" But in truth, they remain chained to the same corporate backbones—cloud services, GitHub, Google APIs. Their rebellion is merely aesthetic, a sandbox rebellion with no structural consequence. ## The Ableist Shadow: When Meritocracy Becomes Supremacy Their ableist gatekeeping isn't theoretical—it's my daily reality. I'm autistic with neurological typing difficulties. I can't simply "learn" my way out of making typos, and I can't magically shift my special interest from Tolkien to Linux configuration files. When Linux breaks—and it will—I need solutions that don't require memorizing arcane commands or parsing through walls of forum posts written by people who assume everyone thinks like they do. Their response? "Just read the documentation and practice more." That's not help—that’s supremacism masquerading as meritocracy, and when called out, it becomes gaslighting. Their systems are designed for the young, the neurotypical, the cognitively agile, and the economically privileged. When confronted, they deflect with the same tired refrain: "No, Linux is empowering for everyone if they just try harder!" If they were honest, they would say: "Yeah, our systems are cognitive gyms for our own caste." At least then we'd know where we stand, because honesty is power while deflection is cowardice. They believe cognition alone confers moral superiority, ignoring wisdom, accessibility, and systemic thinking. They are not wizards forging runes of sovereignty. They are priests of a hollow temple, worshipping their dotfiles as sacred relics. ## Beyond the Cult: A Path Forward I wrote this not to dissuade you entirely, but to warn you. If you choose to embark on this journey, do so with eyes wide open—and prepare yourself for trials far greater than any guidebook suggests. For the WAL community facing Windows 10 EOL, here's what I recommend: **Before You Leap**: Honestly assess your actual needs. Are you seeking sovereignty, or are you fleeing Microsoft's latest annoyance? True sovereignty requires understanding your tools, not just rejecting corporate ones. **If You Must Try**: Start with a virtual machine or spare drive. Test your actual workflow, not just the exciting parts. Can you print? Connect to your work VPN? Edit the documents you actually edit? The mundane tasks will reveal the true cost. **Know Your Limits**: There's no shame in choosing tools that work for your specific situation. A tool that serves your purpose is superior to one that serves your ideology but fails your needs. **Consider Alternatives**: Windows 11 with privacy tweaks, macOS if it fits your budget, or specialized systems like Haiku for simple needs. The binary choice between Microsoft and Linux is false—explore the full spectrum of options. I stand outside the Linux cult because I refuse sandbox illusions. An OS is my forge, my battlefield—I will not worship it. I will use it to build what the hollow wizards cannot even conceive: systems built not for cognitive elitism, but for mythic sovereignty, communal durability, and enduring meaning. The dev cultists are not true enemies in the mythic sense. They are gatekeepers of a dying paradigm, clerics reciting dead prayers to dotfiles and empty abstractions. But in their illusions lies a barrier to true accessible techno-sovereignty. They remain children in the sandbox, believing themselves gods, never stepping beyond their toy temples to confront the Real. We, however, are called beyond their brittle playgrounds—into a realm where tools become true extensions of will, and where technology serves life, not identity performance. > May your path be guided by clarity, not illusion; by sovereignty, not sandbox thrills. Stand firm in the knowledge that your worth lies not in the commands you memorize, but in the wisdom you wield to shape your world. ------ ## Further Reading: Linux Fragility, Accessibility, and Dev Culture Before you leap into Linux out of FOMO, read these. They document the deeper structural, cognitive, and cultural flaws that no “Top 10 Linux Tips!” video will tell you. Knowledge is power – and sometimes, knowing when *not* to act is the greatest power of all. ### ⚙️ **1. Systemic Fragility and Stability Issues** - **"Main Linux problems on the desktop, 2023 edition"** – *itvision.altervista.org* https://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html Comprehensive examination of persistent Linux desktop issues and the gap between server stability and desktop brittleness. - **"Why is Linux Desktop so unstable when it's very stable on servers and on smartphones?"** – *Quora* https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Linux-Desktop-so-unstable-when-its-very-stable-on-servers-and-on-smartphones Explores the paradox of Linux's server reliability versus desktop fragility. - **"Modern Desktop Linux is very fragile because everything has to be configured"** – *Hacker News* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5665198 Examines how Linux desktop environments require complex coordination, creating multiple failure points. - **"Troubles with stability on Linux"** – *Linux.org Forums* https://www.linux.org/threads/troubles-with-stability-on-linux.46472/ Real user experiences demonstrating fragility across distributions. - **"Linux stability issues"** – *Level1Techs Forums* https://forum.level1techs.com/t/linux-stability-issues/199707 Documents desktop crashes and reboots even for experienced users. - **"The myth of stability"** – *Linux.com* https://www.linux.com/news/myth-stability/ Older but relevant analysis of what “stability” truly means in computing contexts. - **"Distribute Game fragility; breakage due to gfx_sdl2 becoming default"** – *GitHub* https://www.mail-archive.com/ohrrpgce@lists.motherhamster.org/msg21055.html Technical example of how component interdependencies create systemic fragility. - **"Linux Desktop Is Failing, Why so, The Myths, and the Solution"** – *DEV Community* https://dev.to/kailyons/linux-desktop-is-failing-why-so-the-myths-and-the-solution-25j2 Critique addressing the gap between Linux community promises and reality. - **"Desktop Linux is easily the least-stable OS I use with any regularity"** – *Hacker News* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29145944 Real-world instability examples including graphics driver issues and application failures. ### 🧠 **2. Accessibility and Neurotypical Bias** - **"The GNU/Linux Desktop and Borrowed Assumptions about Usability"** – *Datamation* https://www.datamation.com/open-source/the-gnu-linux-desktop-and-borrowed-assumptions-about-usability/ Highlights hidden assumptions about user capabilities and accessibility needs. - **"Cognitive UX Design Principles from a Neurodivergent Perspective"** – *LinkedIn* https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cognitive-ux-design-principles-from-neurodivergent-ford-williams Principles for UX design that reduce barriers for neurodivergent users, applicable to OS design. - **"Including Neurodiversity in Digital Accessibility Conversations"** – *Bureau of Internet Accessibility* https://www.boia.org/blog/including-neurodiversity-in-digital-accessibility-conversations Overview of how complexity-focused development cultures exclude neurodivergent users. - **"Inclusive UX/UI for Neurodivergent Users: Best Practices and Challenges"** – *Medium* https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/inclusive-ux-ui-for-neurodivergent-users-best-practices-and-challenges-488677ed2c6e Practical guide to inclusive design and barriers created by neurotypical default assumptions. ### 🛑 **3. Dev Culture, Gatekeeping, and Cognitive Elitism** - **"MacOS I'll buy, but a desktop Linux system feels more brittle than any Windows"** – *Hacker News* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12617769 User experiences comparing OS stability, with cultural attitudes dismissing legitimate concerns. - **"Your experience with 'instability of Arch'"** – *Arch Linux Forums* https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=287289 Discussion revealing the "just learn more" mentality constituting ableist gatekeeping. - **"The Linux Community Is COOKED..."** – YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS_Cy6cG_do A YouTuber detailing his experiences with toxic Linux 'communities'. ------ —[Way of Arda's Lore (formerly Tië eldaliéva)](https://linktr.ee/elvenspiritualpath)