An Update on 'A Day Using Only FOSS'
2012-09-23

I am writing this post a little under a month after
writing "A Day Using Only FOSS"[0].

This month has seen some substantial changes in how I use the
technology around me. For starters, I sold my Apple MacBookPro
that I was using as my daily driver for development at my day
job. I am now using the same Trisquel box for both day job
development and side project development. This has resulted in me
(seemingly) being more productive in both kinds of projects. I
attribute this productivity increase to not having to think about
where a particular config file is, and not having to recall how to
do things in different applications. I still beholden to running
Windows in a VM in order to do cross-browser testing, but I see no
entirely FOSS way around that.

I have also stopped using my Apple iPhone4 and started using a
Samsung Galaxy S3 with the AOKP Rom. Using this phone and the
F-Droid store (along with the Google Play Store) to ensure that I
am only installing and using Free as in Freedom apps is quite
nice. There is still non-free software running on this phone
however. Namely the radio firmware stack and other bits of
firmware. I looked into the Replicant Project[1], but the S3 is not an
officially supported device and I haven't had the time to muck about
with it.

I still am using the non-free software in my car and in my other
household appliances, but those are harder to just switch out than
an operating system. All in all, I think that I have made
significant strides in moving my technology away from non-free
software. The next step is definitely getting an entirely free
cellphone up and running as I use that device many times each
day. Look for that post in the future.

[0] https://zachwick.com/posts/a_day_using_only_foss.txt
[1] http://replicant.us