it was many patches ago when I refused to even start my PC after Microsoft's patches (when they made it so you couldn't reject their telemetry), at least not till I had linux installed (which I had anyhow been running all along via Xwindows, before the Microsoft-mind-virus-infected systemd, wayland, and btrfs crowds decided to ruin linux too.)
well, "linux is just the kernel" eyeroll.emoji so no, you don't, but it's easiest to use a distro, and among distros it's easiest not to use an obscure distro so you can use the package managers to install a variety of apps and tools, but the longterm mainstream distros seem to all be infected, even devuan which is barely mainstream. most "alternate" distros seem to be dedicated to even goofier ideas than the old school that i prefer.
i used fedora for the longest time but now they are not only forcing btrfs, but they won't let you partition either.
it was many patches ago when I refused to even start my PC after Microsoft's patches (when they made it so you couldn't reject their telemetry), at least not till I had linux installed (which I had anyhow been running all along via Xwindows, before the Microsoft-mind-virus-infected systemd, wayland, and btrfs crowds decided to ruin linux too.)
are the BSDs still safe?