We Need a New OS

(This is a sort of addendum to another post I wrote, but I felt it needed it’s own separate blog entry.)

What’s needed is an alternative to the Android OS itself, that can be used as a primary boot on any smart device on the market, that leaves the original OS on the device as the secondary boot option, which can be accessed through a series of steps in the new OS’s log-off options.

Yes, that would mean developers and app development tools just completely re-doing everything, but honestly? We’re all older and wiser nowadays than we were when Android, even Google itself, became a thing. Apple’s in the middle of a monopoly lawsuit (I forget if Google is also part of that, I almost think they are, but am too lazy/unfocused right now to look that up).

Linux has a bazillion distros and any of those can accidentally get borked when a novice user follows online instructions that tell them to get into root access, then do xyz thing, then oops, the whole machine is toast (been there, done that, I suck – I’m sorry). Anyway, I actually don’t think Linux should be the core a new smart device OS should be based on.

Yes, it’s time for a new, free, opensource, never pay a damned thing for any part of it, better, smarter, sleeker, and more user friendly operating system to rule them all. No, I don’t know how to do a single bit of that. I’m just sounding the horn here: it’s time. Past time, in my book. We’re already on the cusp of it: Libre this, free and opensource that, the entire Fediverse’s many instance something elses, F-Droid, Opera… Come on, no one can tell me that it’s not just TIME.

That means a whole new kernel. A new core. A new engine. Something written in one of the many languages available today (needs to be free to use all portions of it, opensource, easy for newbs to understand and seasoned pros to have all the options they could ever dream up, and it needs to be flexible (so new packages can be added to it as OS developers want to, over time), and it needs to not be on Git, which completely sucks IMHO.

I’m sorry, but when a repository just allows any idiot developer to drop a .zip-related “program” that the user then has to somehow figure out how to compile on their own, because the developer was too damned lazy to include an installer with it… That’s stupid. What’s worse is they charge money to use their “copilot.” A thing that’s just a bunch of electrons flying through wires and the air, is making them billions.

Anyway, the new OS needs to come with it’s own completely free and opensource version of AI/Chat-GPT, that works better than anything currently available, and is able to understand visual data uploaded to it, as well as not screw up on math. It also needs to remember chat sessions, have no character limitations, and not send any of that data to its creators (not even for “evaluation purposes”).

It also needs to come with the ability to store files, recall them, and pretty much just be a user friendly computer within the user’s computer, storing all that stuff on their own PC itself (with their permission, and with storage requirement comparisons available to the user, as well as giving the user full control over everything stored).

Essentially, the new OS needs to have it’s own client-side artificial intelligence communication system baked into it. It needs to be included in the system-wide and driver-inclusive updates, which the user needs to have total control over, as well as easy access to from within the OS menus, settings, options, whatever.

The OS needs to work an any device, and depreciate it’s current OS to the secondary bootup position, not the primary (which would be the new OS), by default, with the option to, later on, at the user’s convenience, modify the storage of their files and applications to port all of that over to the new primary OS, and then delete that secondary sucker right off their system, with the option to bring it back later and undo everything if they ever lose their minds and decide they want to do that.

It also needs to be unbreakable by noobs. Meaning that “rooting” should never need to be done by the user, for any reason. They need full control over user-modfiable environment provided by the core OS files and the apps that they runs, without having full control over the core elements of the OS itself. Control over the way they experience using the OS? Yes. The ability to break the core files and how they function themselves? No.

If that means the OS is installed to a separate drive and requires password authentication to access or make changes to the core OS files themselves? Good. No user should have to root their OS and the drive it sits on in order to get some silly software package to function correctly, or to fix the problems with it by using some other software package that requires them to root their system for it to “function”. The new OS needs to be newb-friendly, not only nerd-friendly.

It absolutely must have 100% GUI alternatives to anything that’s done in the command-line. No “You can do xyz with GUI, but you must use a command line to do abc thing.” Please. That junk has got to stop. GUI is the way forward, and really, while commands offer flexibility, there’s no reason to believe they can’t have GUI equivalents.

I don’t know Jack about programming. I do know that the current AI options won’t help anyone write any of this. They’ll sit there and treat you like a 5 year old, talking down to you about how hard it is, or give you an overall, generic, fuzzy-info run-down of what they think it would take (like reading some stupid college essay or something equally revolting). But they’re done helping anyone do any real programming for free.

So, I’m calling on all purist programming enthusiasts out there who won’t do this based on a Linux kernel or distro, who want to make a real difference.

Hell, call it the “Excellent OS” or something silly like that. I don’t care – just please, if you all could get together and get this done the right and fair to all people way, I would absolutely appreciate that. Yes, I know, you have bills to pay. That’s what donation buttons are for, and that should be baked into the OS too, as part of the Applications Menu.

By the way, that menu needs to be not only a movable, lockable, and auto-hidable docker, but it also needs to be able to be split so it’s multiple dockers residing on any side of the screen that the user chooses to put them on.

If you all want to get really fancy, create a decent keyboard that has extra programmable keys that can be used to control the Applications Menu(s). Each app would be assigned a changeable letter and a changeable number, which would denote which docker it’s in and its position within the docker. When the user moves the app’s icon, the app’s letter and number change automatically, so the user doesn’t have to program that into the keyboard.

While you’re at it, please make a keyboard that puts the main typing area in the center, not on the left side, and put all the other “right side keypad” stuff up at the top, so the keyboard is vertically wider, and horizontally shorter. Make it fold down along the top horizontal line (just above the main typing area and the function keys, and include a switch on the side of the top half that switches those keys “on” and “off” (so they don’t get pressed by whatever the user rests the keyboard on).

I know this is all asking a lot, but really, we’re all headed in this direction anyway, so why not get cook’n on it and make life better for everyone? If the OS and it’s specialized keyboard can easily compete with the currently available proprietary or else not so unbreakable options out there, then why not?