This post is basically to encourage people to check Linux out. What is stopping you from ditching Microsoft?

Edit: I forgot to mention this but if someone is looking for a recommendation for a Linux distribution then I'd personally recommend Manjaro KDE or just any of the popular distributions with KDE Plasma as the Desktop Environment really. Edit 2: For those who might be looking for more stability and don't need to have the most up to date software I'd recommend Kubuntu.

  • PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Gentoo gang. Herbstluftwm gang. Emacs gang.

    Been running GNU+Linux since 2004 when I was indoctrinated by eastern European software communists on IRC. Been dual-booting since before reliable 3rd party NTFS drivers were even a thing. I remember tying up the phone line for five days straight downloading ISO images and nearly getting my dad fired. I remember the woes of trying to get my "winmodem" running so I could dial in to Earthlink.

    My first install was on a Pentium 2 machine I found in the trash. I got Debian installed on there and of course, there were issues with X11. This was in the dark ages before X did any auto-configuration and the only way to get it running was pouring through 100s of lines of configuration files. I never got it working. But I did have a login prompt on the TTY, so I logged in and started fooling around with the shell. I learned how to create files. delete them, move them around, change their permissions. I learned you can make scripts, flip the executable bit, and run them like ordinary programs. I learned how unix permissions work and how the system is designed to constrain the permissions of running programs to the user, instead of giving them free reign to bulldoze the entire system. Though a somewhat similar permissions model existed in Windows NT, most commercial software developers never seemed to get the memo by this point and a lot of software would malfunction if it wasn't running on an administrator account.

    A few years later we switched to DSL and I was able to get a Linux machine online for the first time ever using PPPoE. Soon after, I discovered the magic of package managers. Growing up on Windows, I had become very used to the paradigm of wandering to all sorts of random corners from the internet, downloading programs from them, installing them, and maybe updating them years later when something broke. The worst part of it was when setting up a new Windows install (a periodic necessity on Windows XP) - having to remove a bunch of included garbage, while needing to seek out dozens of bare essential programs like Firefox, 7zip, Notepad++, X-Chat, Pidgin, GIMP, VLC, etc. etc. just to survive. The idea that you can fetch everything you need from one place, only needing to trust one third party, and that updates and everything can be handled automatically blew my mind.

    Over the years I have messed around with Debian, Slackware, Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint, Arch, FreeBSD, Gentoo, and a few other special purpose distros. For the time being I have found myself at home with Gentoo, but I have an eternal fondness for Debian, and Fedora is pretty snazzy if you roll with the RPM Fusion repositories to have patented codecs and proprietary drivers.

    GNU+Linux may not have everything, but it is the only platform that consistently improves. It is the only platform where upgrades feel more like opening a Christmas present than opening a letter from the IRS.