It’s been more than 2 years since I started to mainly use GNU/Linux sistems as my daily Os, so I want to share a little of the journey with the community, the ups and downs, the experiences I went through, and all of that stuff so let’s just start
I learned about free software by a friend, who is a great entusiast of it (he’s a very good friend, I love him, and also hate him like all good friends), he introduced it to me because he had think that the ideas and philosophy of the free software were very similar to my social, philosophic and political thoughts (been myself an anarchist) so I really liked the concept and the movement so I said to myself “maybe it’s worth the shot” so he recommended me linux mint, for short, I couldn’t make a dual boot with windows (I didn’t know how to make the partition scheme for the dualboot at the time), and that was something I wanted to have because I didn’t know if I was definitely going to switch, in a retrospective thought It may have been the best.
After that I tried Manjaro, and I gotta say, I loved it, ignoring the fact that I needed to get another usb wifi receptor because the one I had was not compatible, everything went smoothly, I personally wasn’t afraid of the terminal, so I kinda adapted very quickly, and after discovering yay my experience was heavily improved, one of the things I really appreciate at the time was paman, it helped me a lot as a new user, but I gotta say that paman sucks, it kinda makes your system more unstable and more give it more propensity to brake, and that was exactly what happened to me, I didn’t mind mostly because at the time I already had my external ssd to save my data, so after a quick reinstall everything went fine, it was faster, more comfortable, way more customizable and much more user respectful than windows, witch at the point of a year, I just used it for print.
The next thing I did has try debian for a month, I liked very much and is a very good distro, but I was very used to manjaro that I didn’t fully fell comfortable using it, so after that I tried using Arch with arch install, I managed to do the installation under 5 minutes, so it was pretty nice to me, I really like it but I went back to manjaro just for the autocomplete terminal built in.
So fast forward to March, when I found out about the Proton compatibility layer for Steam, I just gotta say that I love Proton, it really make my switch to GNU/Linux almost total, with issues here and there but ultimately it was just a great step in the way of the complete change, something I wanted to do since the first time I used windows 11 on my laptop, I hate it, totally, so for that time I just have it in my laptop to print, again
A fast forward to August, when I decided to install arch manually for the first time, it was a pretty straight forward process thanks to archwiki and it gave me the opportunity to tell the friend that introduced me to free software that I was finally at his level.
So in October 3 important things happened, I switched from Manjaro to Arch, I switched from bash to fish, and the most important, I managed to get my printer working, so from that moment I deleted windows in all my drives, an make the complete switch after so long, finally, I was free from windows, and I’m very happy about that, since then, I use arch both on my PC and laptop, and I’m very happy about that, the last mayor think that I had been making is a distro trying journey, where since the moment I tried debian, I’m been trying almost any distro that brings my attention, and also I installed Gentoo, so I can finally say to my friend “go cry somewhere else normie” (as a joke, obviously), still need to figure out how to install the desktop tho.
So that’s been all, I’m a happy free software enthusiast and I don’t have any intention of going back, I hope to learn more in the future and I hope for the day where the freedom in the digital era became a thing for everyone. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk
You should try inserting a paragraph here and there, because that wall of text is not fun to read… :)
Fixed :)
Yeah that was brutal But thanks for postin your experience op I have to check out proton now
God damn it. It was good ol proton. I thought there was a specific distro that did not bother to check of the name was taken :)
Who GNU Linux could be so fun?
My personal favorite is Debian. I’m the IT director at my job, and 90% of our machines, including end user workstations, are running some form of Linux.
One really nice thing is that most stuff is saved somewhere in your home directory. You can switch between all sorts of distros, and if you install the same software, browser, email client, etc. most of your stuff will automatically be there and work out of the box.
I didn’t know this for a long while when distro hopping and since every distro tinkered with grub etc and I really hated debugging grub, and I was afraid of something happening to my home directory, I overwrote it every single time. I wish I have had a separate drive just for it when I began with linux.
My freind got me into PC in early 2019 me and my friend built a gaming pc. Ran windows then I orginally got a raspi in late 2019 for my 3d printer to run octo-print. Later that year i saw a video about sombody using this Os called Manjaro.
Swaped out my sd card for manjaro arm, gave it a try. Few months go by its 2020. Everything locks down, i have alot of freetime. Decides to install manjaro on seprate sdd. Realize i wrote over winboot. Reinstall windows on 1st ssd. Dualboot manjaro and windows, enjoy using manjaro. Breaks multible time because I used the AUR and didnt know shit. Reinstall manjaro, uses it for a week and didnt Use the AUR. New kernal comes out bricks my install. I didnt know how to fix.
Realationship ended with manjaro, Kbuntu is new freind. Use kbuntu and really enjoy it, use it for e-learning and schooling. Learns about KVM and virt-manager Unistall windows. Use a vm for e-learning (get out of needing to turn on camera for rollcall for class because Vm has no camera for microsoft teams and teams doesnt find a camera) Uses kbuntu religously, 2 months go by arch-install script comes out. Goes back to arch, enjoys arch uses AUR breaks system again :Q. Finds out about fedora, uses fedora for a while. First time using gnome. Falls in love with the simplicy. Installs fedora silverblue on lenovo t450. Trys fedora sodalight, loves the imutablillity. Cant find a package for silverblue trys nix-env. 2021 apears i buy a lenovo w540 cant get shit to run on it (fuck you nvidia and your shitty k110m gpu) decides to try a distrobution called NixOS. Legit crack, addictive better thansex.mp3 . installs every package delcartivly (i figured out how to blacklist nvidia) install nix 23.5 soat. On main rig has a steep learning curve lots of youtube videos help. Just upgraded to 23.11 it works great only thing i cant install is W-okia Rvc voice changer for screwing with my freinds and Lightburn. Because its read only filesystem :(. Other than that everythings been great and i dont have any reason to switch from nix. I bought a t440p and installed skulls libreboot last week and Last night i was dipping my toes into gentoo. Thats neat that we had a simlar journey with manjaro LMAO.
Funny that the printer was the thing that cemented the shift. Ive either been really lucky or linux is much better than windows for printers
I’m at college at the moment, so printing is essential for me, right now I can’t print on my desktop but my laptop can do it fine, but yeah that was the final step fot the shift
Edit; I can do it in my desktop too now :)
Usually linux is better than windosd
Reading this is making me want to try Arch on my second drive just so I can say “I use Arch btw” lol
Yeah that’s mainly the only reason why I installed Gentoo on a spared drive, I’m reinstalling it for been able to use a desktop environment tho
If you’re getting into Proton, you might want to look at Nobara.
It’s seems pretty interesting, I will give it a shot, thanks for the recommendation!
ignoring the fact that I needed to get another usb wifi receptor because the one I had was not compatible
managed to get my printer working,
IMHO that’s one of the most important trick… namely, and sadly, don’t assume compatibility. Do 5min of Internet search to insure that the hardware you buy is actually supported, and ideally without any manual installation requiring to patch the kernel. This makes usage a lot more enjoyable, where you only focus on making your experience better.
PS: I said “sadly” because in theory, if hardware genuinely relied on standards, e.g Bluetooth, without their own extension, custom software as equivalent to drivers, hardware for PC “should” work everywhere. In practice it’s not always the case and that can be very frustrating.
Yeah that sucks, fortunately I use a repeater to connect via ethernet, so it’s not a problem anymore, and the printer just needed the right drivers, so I finally don’t have any problems with that