Linux and Me - how linux changed things for me

I don’t know accurately when I became a “tech fan” but I do remember playing Java games in my uncle’s Nokia phone. I did my first google search when I was 6 yo. It may seem normal but let me tell you I from a socioeconomically backward region (I will make sure it won’t be same in future 👍) and most of my friends learned to use internet way later. I knew how to download java games, it was a great feat back them to be honest. Then it all accelerated when I was in 7th, we got our 1st laptop. I was allowed to use it only in weekends that too for like 2-3hrs. That was enough for me and I started playing around things and discovered things on my own.

At that time I also started developing more interest in consumer electronics, like watching phone reviews and all. YouTube channels like Technical Guruji, Beebom, MKBHD, MrWhosetheboss these all became my most watched channels.

However back then I used to use windows. Actually we had a linux pre-installed in our laptop. It was some govt linux called BOSS linux, So unstable, ugly UI, had no idea on how to use it all bad. This created an image of linux in my mind like “Linux is a terrible OS, I don’t understand why people even consider using it”. Then I use windows and didn’t even think about using linux.

The Linux era

This changed last year, I saw people discussing about greatness of linux online, so I installed Ubuntu along with my Windows 10 as my old potato pc wasn’t capable of running a VM. But, I didn’t use it right after installing. Then after a month in March I uninstalled a driver in windows and windows started showing blue screen on restarting it. I felt too lazy to fix it and I shifted to Ubuntu. It was my first decent introduction on using Terminal. Coolest thing for me was the package manager. It felt so cool to do a sudo apt install lol.

I used Ubuntu from March to May, then I shifted to Fedora and used it for three months. In September I got my new laptop so installed arch on it. I was too noob for it, I forgot configuring network manager xd. Had to chroot and setup network manager later. I started arch with KDE, then one day I broke something so decided to use Endeavour OS. Then again I broke it when plasma 6 was on its unstable phase and I tried using it(may be my own skill issue).

Now I have a bspwm along with polybar, piocm, alacrityy, rofi. Ahh these fancy window managers take so much time to rice but it gives a great learning and a showoff moment in r/unixporn. I am still a big noob and I have to learn a lot lol.

My Linux experience

First thing first it gives you more control. Linux forces you to learn things. It is opensource, it has a great community that tells you to RTFM. Just kidding community is great, you can learn lots of things from the community. It lets you stay closer to your system which brings a ton of learning opportunity.

How changing and adding some text and values in config files can change appearance, window behavior and many more things in your system is so fun. Most of the things you use in Linux are opensource, like imagine how great of a ecosystem it is. Specially building projects are more seamless in Linux. In windows, to install gcc you have to download mingw then add it to path blah blah - too many steps. But in Linux you can just do a sudo pacman -Syu gcc that’s it nothing much.

Newer packages comes first to Linux and Mac cause they are Unix like system so its easier to develop packages for them. When I made this site with astro and bunjs, windows didn’t have a stable version of bunjs. Doing most of work in terminal without touching mouse is delightful experience. Haha I know how to exit vim too! Ngl Neovim(and vim too) is great text editor.

In the end, I just want to say, every computer science student should give Linux a try, it nurishes the hacker nature, enhances command line, scripting skills. You will have a deeper knowledge on system architecture.

I hope you liked this article. If you wanna say Hi or anything, here’s my Telegram @ashirbadtele or you can mail me at ashirbadreal@proton.me.