I was an ardent Windows user for all my school life. Though I had heard of GNU/Linux and had seen people using it, I always thought of it as a piece of software meant for geeks and an absolute nightmare to daily drive (I can now confirm that this is not true).
Linux is just the kernel (the core of the OS). Most of the Linux distros that we use today are based on GNU/Linux. Hereafter, when I say Linux in this article, I actually refer to GNU/Linux, unless stated otherwise.
The First Encounter
The first time I booted into Linux was in my second semester in college (Yep! It took me that long to muster the courage). It was a dual boot installation of Ubuntu Desktop alongside Windows. It took me a little longer to take the plunge and remove my Windows installation.
Honestly, it’s not that bad! As a matter of fact, I came to prefer some aspects of Linux to Windows, like how easily we could install software with just the command line rather than hunting for the .exe installer online or how the system updated in the background without bothering me (at least some of us must have wished Windows could do that). Despite all of that, I found myself booting into Windows from time to time for using some utilities that I had gotten used to (later, I did find some wonderful alternatives).
The Leap of Faith
Over time, I grew comfortable with Linux to the point where I started to enjoy it. Moreover, as a computer science student, a few of my courses in college mandated the use of Linux. Though I had apprehensions, I finally decided to take the leap of faith and remove the Windows installation. With some hindsight, I’d say this is one of the best decisions that I took during college. For me, it opened up a new world of possibilities that I never knew existed.
Pop!_OS - My Distro of Choice
Pop!_OS is an Ubuntu-based distro with additional features and a slightly different look and feel. For me, the most appealing feature is the inbuilt tiling. For a person who has a bazillion browser tabs and terminal instances open at a time, tiling is a game-changing step towards productivity. It was my go-to choice when I decided to go all in.
In my opinion, Pop!_OS is one of the best distributions for beginners which offers one of the best user experiences out of the box with little to no configuration. It even comes preinstalled with NVIDIA drivers (which in some distros, can be a pain).
I Use(d) Arch BTW!
Inspired by the stunning setups on r/unixporn, I decided to build my own unique desktop on Linux. After scrounging the internet for window managers for a while, I decided to go with awesomewm for my first ever rice.
Ricing is the act of customizing one’s desktop to improve its look and feel. The term originates from here.
After dozens of repos and hundreds of lines of Lua code, I had my first rice. It wasn’t perfect, but it was mine 😊. This GitHub repo contains some awesome widgets that may fit into most configs without much hassle. The feeling of having complete control of the operating system and knowing exactly what programs are being run felt good. If you’re looking to take a peek into the world of tiling window managers, awesomewm is a great place to start! It’s easy to get up and running with it since it comes with a lot of stuff out of the box.
As time went by, I found myself tweaking my config so often that I felt like I did it more than actual work. Working with dual monitors wasn’t a pleasant experience for a start. No matter how much I tweaked it, something felt off. That was when my friends at FOSSCell asked me to check out these dotfiles. It looked pretty cool! But there was one problem - it only worked on the unstable branch of Debian or Arch Linux. Though I had my doubts, I bookmarked the ArchWiki and decided to join the cool kids. I was freaked out by the ridiculously long installation videos on the internet, but the archinstall script saved the day.
I installed the CLI and loaded up hyprdots and with some minor changes in scaling and keybindings, I felt right at home with the setup. After playing around with Arch for a while, I kinda started liking it. The Arch User Repository (AUR) is just amazing! You always get the cutting edge versions of software that often is not even available in the native repositories of Debian or Fedora. Of course! The latest and greatest versions of programs come with the cost of a bit of stability. But in my opinion, the trade-off is worth it for easy access to a plethora of amazing user-maintained repositories. If you know what you’re doing, Arch would never let you down.
But the recent pre-alpha release of the COSMIC desktop environment with the promise of its release bundled with Pop!_OS 24 lured me back into Debian land, but I do see myself switching sides from time to time in the future (I love hopping distros! My SSD probably wouldn’t).
Conclusion
If you just want things to work, can’t think of a life without Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Cloud subscription or are into serious gaming (Although gaming in Linux has taken a huge leap over the years, its just not there yet), Linux is not your cup of tea. But if you’re willing to take the chance, try out open-source alternatives, looking to make computing more fun and impart some personality to your system, it is worth a try. It’s not as hard as you think. There are a lot of beginner-friendly distros to get your feet wet. There are options like Ubuntu and Linux Mint to make the transition from Windows a breeze.