About ten months ago, I stepped into the world of linux out of curiosity. As a freshman, I encountered a senior that used Linux as his operating system. It looks obvious that he’s not using Windows. It’s all looked non-windows, rather directing towards Mac. Its UI was quite beautiful, to be honest. So, I asked him some questions, he told me a little about Linux, meanwhile he seemed rather proud and passionate of it as well. And so, I’ve taken interest of Linux.
I wasn’t as naive as most newcomers. I’ve heard various things about Linux before. Whether it’s security-related or performance-related. There is also about compability, something like ‘the applications you could run is limited,’ etc. Performance is the one that interested me the most. I’ve been using Windows and saw many heavy system programs that do me more pains than favors.
Before actually installing Linux I considered ‘why?’ Performance is great, but what would I actually do with Linux in my laptop? Well, I heard many things about Linux is perfect for programming. So, initially, I used that as my excuse.
Do not throw yourself into the deep end. If you ever considering switching operating systems, know what to expect. I did some research before jumping to Linux. So, I know where am I going. One of beginners’ mistake I’ve heard and seen myself is they tend to think that Linux is a direct substitution of Windows. That’s partially wrong because it’s fundamentally a different operating system. I seriously recommend you to do some research before consider switching. Find reasons why to switch, or not to switch. If it’s contradict, than don’t force yourself. Newcomers often confused themselves, to little things such as “why can’t I run .exe” or “why can’t I run half of my steam game.” Because, welp - you’re not supposed to do that. It’s a funny scene, but if you do as far as swiping all of your disk data without backing up, than it’s not as funny anymore, is it?
And so, I decided to dual-boot. Dual-booting is essentially having two operating system in one disk. In my case, I have Linux and Windows that I could choose when I turned on my laptop. It was mostly because I still played games, and used most of Windows exclusive programs - don’t want to crave for them on Linux.
Using Ubuntu
As for the distro, I chose Ubuntu. It’s the almighty beginner distro, it’s very easy to setup, use, and customize. I used it for about a month, while often scratching my head trying to do every single thing on it, since obviously, it’s very different from Windows.
On Ubuntu, I learnt to utilize shell, started using vim, and even started to rice my distro. To be honest, since then, I found joy on typing, even started preferring keyboard rather than excessive mouse usage. It’s a great feeling.
At first, using shell was quite strange. Most people loves usual GUIs - I do too. It’s really easy, since you could click anything in sight. But when facing shell, you need to know what to type - the syntax. I’m pretty sure we have a habit of clicking randomly and see what it does, but in terminal, you need to know exactly what you want to do. It is always confusing at the beginning, but I’d later found out that using terminal is much more efficient in general.
I made shell like home, resorting to others only when necessary. Which is why, I also started using neovim. Neovim is a code editor, where mouse has [almost] zero use. You can embed it on your terminal, and it’s also lightweight. It’s another thing that would be hard to get use to, but would be extremely efficient once you do.
Using Arch
After a month of Ubuntu, I still find similar issues as I have on Windows. Performance, it’s quite slow. Indeed, I’m using a low-end laptop, but still, there are too many unused bloated programs that. So, I turned my attention to Arch Linux.
The main principle of Arch Linux is KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Arch Linux defines simplicity as without unnecessary additions or modifications. It ships software as released by the original developers (upstream) with minimal distribution-specific (downstream) changes: patches not accepted by upstream are avoided, and Arch’s downstream patches consist almost entirely of backported bug fixes that are obsoleted by the project’s next release.
In other words, you’ve only got everything you need, nothing else - which is something that I desperately need in sake of performance. Additionally, you are free to do what you want, assemble the system to your needs. Once again though, I know where am I going. Arch Linux is for more experienced users, especially when you try to install, you need to do everything yourself. Copying installation files, bringing GUIs, etc. you do by yourself. Risks are on you.
You’ve given a black sheets of command, you do the rest by yourself. I consider this carefully, and after watching a short video of ‘installing arch linux,’ I’m confident with a little knowledge of bash Ubuntu has given me, and the almighty Arch Linux installation guide, I could use Arch Linux.
Ricing
And to this day, I’m still using Arch Linux.
Although, I have to say, I might’ve not used the distro’s ability to it’s fullest. It’s been known for its versatility, but I really had no idea what it specifically differs from another distro.
What I did though, was a lot of ricing. I searched for ideal window managers, trying out each GNOME, i3, Awesome, and KDE. I stayed with i3 for quite a while and did a lot of customization there, but eventually switched to KDE.
Here are some of my rices on i3. Most of them are manually written, went through a lot of problem solving just to make it looks nicer. You can tell, I’m quite proud of it.
Someone said these rices can be easily recreated even in Windows. That’s true, you might find some tools like rainmeter, winaero tweaker, etc. that allows you to recreate similar things, or even better.
So, why bother? Well, the pictures cannot tell how much I enjoyed making them. As I said, I did most thing manually, I went through a lot of problem solving, typing, and headscratching just to make them. It might be a hard route, but it felt far more rewarding once you got it done. Not to mention, I learnt a lot, and it taught me what kind of joy you can find from programming. In other words, it’s never about the destination, it’s the journey. I’m pretty sure everyone on /r/unixporn thought the same.
After months, I switched to AwesomeWM, did nothing there since the customization felt so complicated, then ended up on KDE.
Picture above is my current ‘rice.’ It’s basically nothing, but I like how it is. Which perhaps adds up my point that how good your desktop looks ultimately doesn’t matter. It’s all about experience and joy on making them.
Looking Back
So, how’s Linux? I could’ve said that ‘no regret switching to Linux,’ but a dual-booter has no right to say that. Otherwise, it’s fantastic. Splitting operating systems are like having two different modes. I used Windows mostly to relax, and have fun. Then, on Linux, I switched to a more productive mindset.
Would I recommend it? For productivity purposes, especially programming, I would totally recommend it. It has a wide support, and even the community is very friendly. The flexibility and versatility of Linux also allows my workflow to be more fluid. Using the tiling window manager - that is [kind of] introduced on Windows 11 - I find myself wasting less time navigating through a mess that I typically have on Windows. In a nutshell, think of it as a Mac alternative.