- Preferably Licenced Under Free License (GPL, MIT, Apache, BSD, etc.), though I'm fine with using a non-free licence.
- Terminal-Based: Terminal applications get the job done, simple as that. No need for gui-based bloat if I'm already familiar with the terminal.
- Easily Configuarble Via Config File: I dislike having to click through several settings menus in order to find the setting that I need to change. Configuration files are portable & efficent.
A Wise Man Once Said:
"Arch On The Desktop, Debian On The Server, Windows On The Wall and Apple In My Tummy."
Operating systems aren't one size fits all, and your choice is largely up to your personal use cases and preferences. I would avoid operating systems with unnecessary telemetry (Windows, MacOS, and Ubuntu collect a lot of your data), and operating systems that are closed source. I personally reccomend Gentoo, Arch Linux / Artix (If you'd like to avoid systemd) and OpenBSD.
LibreWolf (A privacy-focused fork of Firefox) with the following extensions: uBlock Origin, I Still Don't Care About Cookies, Decentraleyes and Dark Reader (all of which are fully open-source).
Tiling window managers are amazing, but that majority of applications (Particularily those that are gui-based) aren't built with tiling window managers in mind. For some applications, you need a dedicated non-tiling window manager. Hyprland is an amazing window manager, and it can be configured to look / fuction however you want. For non-tiling window managers I would reccomend Xfce: Simple & Lightweight, all you really need for a Desktop Environment.
I don't use anything special, Bash is fine for my use case.
Kitty: GPU-based and Extensible via python scripting. All around a great terminal.
MPV: open source and fast, all you really need for a video player.
Thunar: The Xfce file manager. I personally prefer gui-based file managers, but if you'd like a terminal based file manager, I'd reccomend lf.