Here's a list

Initially, it did have some focus on typing in the Bangla language since I, the developer, am from Bangladesh. But now in later versions, that focus was also given to other languages and those Bangla focused working or tone have stayed and need to be updated

Hi, this is the author of wmkeyboard. Thanks for the detailed write-up. Here are my thoughts:

Yes, it is designed as a kitchen sink, or rather, it's turned out that way due to improper planning. I'm in the process of streamlining things a bit more, and there are still a few things to iron out. And yes, some people like this and some don't; I'm someone who does. I initially built this keyboard only for myself and shared it, not anticipating that it would get the traction it is getting right now. And yes, I have already thought about moving things to be purely opt-in, like plugins, and I was just working on that before reading your comment. You can also make the wmkeyboard suggestion bar scroll to the side with this setting and you can edit not only symbols layout but any layout and screen in the keyboard, even things like the handwriting input panel or the emoji panel or number input or anything else. It also has a visual layout editor which I believe heliboard and Florisboard lack and also I don't think they allow changing the other layouts that wmkeyboard does. Oh, also, you can import settings, layouts, themes, etc., from Heliboard, Florisboard, and more for easier switching.

But this comes in a not too distant third. That’s saying a lot from me.

Yes that is saying a lot about you and your ability to utilise this keyboard. Most of the user reviews I've heard say that they've been using multiple keyboards including the ones you mentioned and this one is the best they've tried

Also I've taken note of the overly cumbersome settings navigation and onboarding and will make them more easy and straightforward in the future

My motive for liking this article is that I initially moved off of Windows onto Linux due to the Recall drama and AI getting shoved in. And now a lot of AI-generated code is going into the Linux kernel. So I was wondering if there were any viable alternatives. I'm not looking for alternatives for clout or to show how much of a genius I am compared to all those normies. I'd actually prefer if there was a popular alternative that matched my requirements, especially since because I'm not a genius. More users = more people asking and answering different support questions = it's easier for me to self-solve any problem that occurs without investing all the hours needed to become an expert.

(If none of them have enough documentation or compatible needed applications for my non-expert self, I was going to go with Gentoo, and if I still cannot figure that out, any Linux distribution is still probably better than Windows or Apple on 1) preloading generative artificial intelligence features onto the OS and making them hard to take out and 2) not training AI on your data.)

Also, it is nice to find out about people making other options. Right now I was mostly under the impression there were three options: Windows, MacOS, and the many Linux distributions. I figured there were a few niche OSes out there. This article makes them more "real" to me. In a society where our choices are increasingly being narrowed to a few brands, and alternatives to the big guys keep getting acquired, I like to see different options existing, that people invested their time and love into these cool projects. (Yes, I do understand that Windows and MacOS are the big guys and Linux is much smaller from a non-server-admin viewpoint.)

I'm sure there are other genuine motives for liking the article as well, as opposed to clout-chasing ones.

Would like to hear more about your Haiku experience. Is it a decent daily driver?

edit: https://www.haiku-os.org/about/faq

Can I use Haiku as my primary Operating System?

Yes! Although the OS is still considered “beta”, it is reasonably stable and can be used to perform most daily tasks such as browsing the web writing and reading e-mails, or listening to music and watching videos. We strongly recommend that you make backups of your personal files regularly.

Can Haiku connect to the Internet?

Yes! We reuse network drivers from FreeBSD, so most network adapters will work on Haiku out of the box. Haiku includes an e-mail client and a web browser, and you can install other network-enabled applications.

Only recently got the new macOS and its hideous. On iOS it is fine i think, especially as apps are more streamlined there anyways. The effect is pretty but that is the problem on macOS, its mostly used for low priority navigation buttons like the back button and completely fucks with the hierarchy. At least that is my explanation for why things look so weird there.

Switched to Debian/Android and never looked back. Best thing about it is that I can finally use standards again and dont have to go around those artificial road blocks that Apple has put up.

It's a Unix clone. Originally, Berkeley licensed Unix source code from AT&T and built upon it, but then anyone who wanted to use it needed to pay a ton of money to AT&T. So they rebuilt it without any of the original code and gave it away under the BSD license.

Berkeley hasn't released an update in 3 decades though, so it lives on through forks.

Different BSD forks have their own package managers. I would imagine they all have dependency resolution, otherwise a package manager is kinda pointless.

Nvidia has drivers for FreeBSD and I believe so does AMD. So it's really mostly a question of whether your networking and sound are supported

Me too. I'm still on macOS 15 because I can't stand the mess they did with Liquid Ass on macOS 26+.

I'll just move to Linux Mint in a few months...

You know, I'm not nearly knowledgeable enough in BSD stuff, other than it's another Unix-like system like Linux. Or is it an actual Unix distro?

What's the difference between the various BSDs out there?

How are software packages managed? Is it through a package manager? Does it have dependency resolution like Apt does?

It must be hard to find supported drivers for BSD no?

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The team states no proprietary Windows code is copied or transcribed.

But what if they have looked at it before?

I’ve been a Mac user for years but now that Apple has decided to add a pop up to tell me to upgrade to the subscription version of iWork (and won’t stop nagging me all the time) I’m moving to LibreOffice (and eventually full Linux).

Because both Microsoft Office and iWork have become so dependent upon AI and subscriptions and LibreOffice just comes out and says “hey we don’t use AI and by the way, want a free office suite that’s just like the big ones before they enshittified?”. Of course people checked it out.

Hopefully others take note.

Love LibreOffice, and have been using it on my MacBook for about a decade now… but with all the hubbub about ArtCraft’s CraftApps, I tried em out, and I gotta say, I might be switching.

From when I tried Kolibri on VM, a fair chunk of the software wasn't there yet and didn't really work. So I wish them the best of luck and hope it can become at minimum hobbyist machine levels of working and success in the future.

Iirc redox can run linux under a hypervisor to use its drivers

I wonder how many people saw this coming.

I get the sense that a lot of people were blindsided recently, not only from large recent donations to some groups, and Linus using AI... but also OSI declaring a focus on politics.

Try also WM keyboard. It's a new slop based keyboard but it may be good slop? Maybe. I tested it and I'm on FUTO but I could also grow to like WM. Hopefully the good parts proliferate.

I'll try it out, thanks!

FUTO keyboard does.

I swear there is latency even though I swapped out gboard. Plus, gboard randomly swaps back in.

Is there an alternative to Gboard that allows swipe?

That's the closest I've seen so far. It'd be perfect if it also hid checked items in sub groups without all sub items needing to be checked but I can definitely work with this. Thanks!

if you don't mind scripting a bit, logseq can handle that. I achieved it using tags and a custom query, but I imagine there are more roads leading to that objective.

I use notally-X and I find it's a pretty good replacement. It can even import your Google takeout.