Software today is bloated. Operating systems, applications—they all seem to suffer from a desire to be everything to everyone, packed with features I'll never use and visual "bling" that just gets in the way. That's why I use Ubuntu.

To me, Ubuntu is the Land Cruiser 79 Series of operating systems. It's simple, powerful, and utterly reliable. The package manager is straightforward, and the entire system is easy to understand and maintain. It doesn't distract me with unnecessary lights and fluff; it just provides a rock-solid foundation for me to do my work.

I loved Linux so much that I once packed an old machine with as many network PCI cards as it could hold, determined to build my own BGP router from scratch. I wanted to enjoy both worlds: the simplicity of the Linux command line and the marvel of what I could achieve with it. It was only later, when I started working for an ISP, that I had a realization: what I had built was, in principle, what a carrier-grade Juniper router is all about.

My fight against bloat has led me to a new project: building my own minimal desktop environment on top of the Ubuntu kernel. The idea is to have a simple Django application that serves everything I need: my VS Code editor, an email client, a web browser, and a custom terminal for my network engineering tasks. Nothing more. It's about creating the perfect tool for the job, stripped of everything that doesn't serve a direct purpose.