The “Lunduke Computer Operating System” from the Linux Tycoon is systemd-free, but wears a MAGA hat.
Bryan Lunduke, the well-known media maven who started his career as a software developer, has built a Linux distro, LCOS for Lunduke Computer Operating System.
The distribution has also been given official recognition by DistroWatch, which yesterday gave it its own page on the website, which means it’s now included in the site’s Page Hit Ranking, which has long been the most used measure of a distro’s popularity even though it really only measures the number of visits the page gets (as of this writing, its ranking is 372 out of 544 listed distros, with 39 hits per day on its page).
In DistroWatch’s notice of LCOS’s 1.0 release, a number which usually indicates that software is ready to handle production workloads, site editor Jesse Smith described the distro as “a privacy-focused, minimalist desktop Linux distribution based on Devuan. It promises to provide a traditional operating system with no ID or age verification, no built-in artificial intelligence features, and no software clones or kernel blobs written in Rust.”
In keeping with its minimalist aspirations, LCOS sports Xfce as its default desktop.
Lunduke’s Credentials
What’s most noteworthy about this distro isn’t the distro itself, but the person behind it.
If you’re surprised that Lunduke has taken on the development of a Linux distribution, that’s probably because you primarily know him as a media maven, which has been his shtick for most of the last two decades. He was a co-founder at Jupiter Broadcasting, and cohosted “The Linux Action Show” until 2012. After that he covered Linux and open source for Network World. In 2009, at LinuxFest Northwest in Bellingham, Washington, he started his well-known “Linux Sucks” presentations, which surrounded constructive criticism in an envelope of humor. During the current decade he’s been using his “Lunduke Journal” platform to spout right-wing ideology that’s aligned with the MAGA movement.
Before that, however, he was a bona fide and in-the-trenches techie, starting in software testing before becoming a full-time programmer. He worked at Microsoft for about five years around the turn of the century, where he focused on Windows-related projects such as Windows Media Player for Macintosh.
Why Lunduke Computer Operating System
If you’re thinking that the main purpose of LCOS is to support the Lunduke brand, which is closely aligned with the niche that Lunduke has carved out for himself among the anti-woke conspiracy theorist crowd, you’re probably correct. In the tongue-in-cheek Substack-published press release, Lunduke quotes himself:
“‘LCOS fixes the biggest problems plaguing operating systems today,’ stated Bryan Lunduke, King of LCOS. ‘Desktop computers are being attacked with garbage that none of us actually want: ID verification and data collection. Forced online accounts. Bloated, slow software. AI features shoehorned into simple text editors. Weaponized Codes of Conduct. And, of course, weird, Woke politics. LCOS has none of that nonsense. Just great software.'”
While most of us are opposed to ID verification, data collection, forced online accounts, bloated, slow software, and probably even AI features shoehorned into simple text editors, his attacks on codes of conduct and “woke” politics send up red flags to some of us, largely because they’re probably dog whistles to Lunduke’s followers.
“‘It’s like using a computer from the 1990s… but with modern guts,’ said Lunduke. ‘The best of both cutting edge and retro computing. Want to play the latest Steam games? LCOS has you covered. At the same time, LCOS also ships with Zork, the original text adventure game. Old and new. Chocolate and peanut butter. Better together.'”
That part would probably sound good to all sorts of Linux users, including me. But I’m not about to use it for the same reason I wouldn’t buy a Tesla if I could afford one, even though they have a reputation for being well-engineered automobiles: I don’t want to support the people behind the products.
Lunduke has done more than merely call out “weaponized codes of conduct” and “weird, woke politics.” He’s openly attacked open source projects like Gnome for the organization’s support of LGBTQ people, and thinks it fine to call a trans woman involved in open source projects “a dude who likes to wear dresses.”
Nope. I don’t even want to look at this operating system. But I do wish Lunduke well, and hope he wakes up to his own humanity, to use a metaphor he dislikes.
If you want to try LCOS, be my guest, and I’ll be interested in hearing your appraisal of the distro in the comments section below this article. Lunduke has set up a special page on The Lunduke Journal’s website for accessing the ISO, where separate instructions and system requirements are also available.
Oh, and in case Lunduke complains because I didn’t reach out to him for this article (he’s done that before): I didn’t need to.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
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