I Am #AliveAndThriving Today! || #IAmAliveChallenge || Daily Off-Grid Jungle Journal Entry: Day #1068 - My Love for Open-Source and Community-Driven Operating Systems - GaiaYoga Gardens, Lower Puna, Far East Big Island, Hawai'i - Monday. June 30, 2025

I live naked and barefooted, very close to Earth and Nature, in an 18-acre, off-grid, clothing-optional, food-forest intentional community (GaiaYoga Gardens), way out in the jungles of Lower Puna, far East Big Island, Hawai'i, and I have for more than 6 years now. Although there are many challenges, I love my life, and I'm immensely grateful to live where and how I do, on my own terms! I would not want to live any other way! 😁🙏💚⚡💥🔥✴️✳️❇️👣🌱✨🤙

Warm greetings all! 😁🙏💚✨🤙

One of the very curious aspects about me is that although I choose to live naked, deep in and close to nature and the earth, in an off-grid community in the jungle, I'm also a passionate tech geek, who's enthralled by open-source, community-driven technological frameworks. That's one of the many reason that I love Hive, Qortal, Blurt, Bastyon, among others, and why I originally dove into Linux so many years ago (6 years on Ubuntu, and now more than 7 years on Arch Linux), as the power and freedom that such frameworks offer is truly extraordinary, if we take the time to learn them well. Years before I discovered Hive, or even before I became interested in the potential of Blockchain technology, my initial explorations into Linux rocked my world so much, that soon after gaining proficiency, I never went back to Windows, which is a far inferior operating system from my perspective. That's when I became fascinated with operating systems, and more specifically, open-source and community-driven operating systems.

So many people only use the OSes that are pre-installed on the devices that they buy, which in the computer world comes down to some version of Windows or MacOS, which I find incredibly sad, because these closed-source, corporation-created OSes are far more limited in terms of what can be done with them, as well as making such people completely dependent on the corporations that made them, which is really, really, really not a good thing, because it's become quite clear to me that they do not have people's best interest in mind. I'll just put it this way, any systems that we don't control, can and will be used to control us.

When I first experimented with Linux, it was with Ubuntu 11.10 back in the fall of 2011 (11.10 means 2011, and the October release), and I found myself astounded by just how elegant, functional, and flexible that it was. I explored and tried many different distributions of Linux after my first foray into Ubuntu, but it was with Ubuntu that I ended up staying for several years, because it had all the software that I needed, and because I could reinstall and set up my system with Ubuntu quickly. That last part really came in handy, because as I learned it work with Ubuntu, I messed up my system so many times, and with my limited knowledge and understanding at the time, it was just easier to reinstall and set everything again from scratch.

After 6 years running Ubuntu, I finally experimented with Arch Linux, something that I had been wanting to do for a while, which was a whole different animal, and which rocked my techy world yet again, but at a whole new level. After running both for a time, I finally let Unbutu go, and began using Arch Linux exclusively, as it was truly the most amazing operating system that I had ever used. That's still true to this day. Now after more than 7 years on Arch Linux, I'm finally diving into exploring FreeBSD, which is a completely different Unix-like operating system, that originated from a totally different source than Linux. As with Arch Linux, I've been wanting to begin exploring and working with the BSDs, of which there are 3 main variants, FreeBSD, which is the most used, as well as NetBSD and OpenBSD, which both have more specialized focuses, on cross-platform compatibility and security respectively. The design philosophy for Linux and the BSDs are very different, which is part of what interests me so much.

I successfully installed FreeBSD on an SSD on second laptop, though there are still two important issues that I need to address, getting the graphical user interface, and my ethernet network card, functioning correctly. Normally, if I find installing and setting up an operating systems to be too difficult for some reasons, I'd just give up on it and move on, but FreeBSD is such an excellent OS that I'm determined to make it work. With that in mind, I registered an account on the FreeBSD forums, with the purpose of seeking assistance with my two installation problems. I have a strong feeling that I'm going to really like FreeBSD, so I'm giving it extra effort, and I intend to come to learn it as well as I have Arch Linux. There's no way that I'm ditching Arch, but FreeBSD may indeed become a new passion. What can I say? I'm deeply fascinated with operating systems, and I want to work with the best.

Yesterday, Monday, I left the Flow House, after finishing up my Hive tasks, just after 2:15PM, giving my attention first, as I almost always do, to some photography for my posts. Once I had a nice batch of shots, I went to chop and dump bad/used coconuts at the upper coco bar, and to tidy the area a bit. When I finally had that done, I collected a few coconut's worth of coconut water and coconut meat, which I then blended with local raw honey, as a base to ferment another round of kefir. After finshing with kefir, I went to Tutu's to collect some food supplies, back to the Landing to make myself some food (spiced-and-seasoned ground beef, eggs, onions, tomatoes, amaranth leaves, and pepperjack cheese), and with that and my jar of leftover superfood fire coffee in hand, I headed back to the Flow House to begin my evening Hive tasks, and to catch up on my notifications. I got everything done by around 10:30PM, and after some asset management, and a long scan of my X feed, I went to bed a bit after 12AM. I woke up very early, a little after 5:30AM, having slept fairly well, doing more asset management, going to make my superfood fire coffee in the Landing, returning to the Flow House to power up my HIVE for HPUD, write and publish a post about it, July HPUD - Hive Power Up Day - 51.953 HIVE Powered Up!, and then to begin writing this post, which I paused for a little while because Chelsea paid me a visit. It's now just before 2PM, so an excellent time to end this post, so that I may get to my few other important Hive tasks, before leaving the Flow House a bit later in the afternoon, to focus first on photography for my posts, then community/land work. I deeply appreciate y'all so very much! Until tomorrow's edition of these posts! Always forward, onward, upward, and whaleward, ho, together we go! 😁🙏💚✨🤙

2025 Life Goals

1.) Do regular integral practices again, alone or with others.

2.) Prepare regular batches of my medicinal teas collected from the land again.

3.) Make my plant nursery, and the gardens, beautiful again.

4.) Begin learning relevant coding/programming languages to more fully contribute to the sovereignty-driven technologies where I am active, like Arch Linux, Hive, Qortal, DeSo, and Bastyon.

All photos were taken with my Motorola G Play 2024 Android Phone.

Thank you all so much who have helped me get to where I am today, and allowing me to share more of the beauty and magic from my life and my world with you, and for your continuous appreciation and support! I am truly deeply grateful! 😁🙏💚✨🤙

If you'd like to find me on other alternative platforms where I have accounts (I spend most of my time here on Hive), click on this signature image below to go to my LinkTree page.

Support Bradley's BBH Project Witness Node

Bradley's tenaciously committed and all-in on Hive for the long haul (just like me!), and the higher his witness goes in the ranking, the higher the weekly BBH and BBHO dividend payouts will be! Vote Here!

Signature image created by @doze, and the dividers made by @thepeakstudio, with all tweaked to their present form by me.