this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2024
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Initially, I chose Linux for it being gratis, but as I've used it more and more, I started to appreciate its freedom. It's really kinda moot though since I first gotten exposed to Linux because I had to. Our uni adopted Linux (some faculties used Linux Mint, others used Ubuntu) for their school computer laboratories after they couldn't pay for their Windows licenses. In a way, I indeed got into Linux because it is gratis.
I started daily-driving Linux when my Win7 desktop broke, and had to use an ancient, hand-me-down, laptop. It can barely run Win7, and so I tried installing Ubuntu on it (funny in hindsight though, I should have used a lightweight Linux distro). Then a friend of mine introduced me to Manjaro. It worked well for quite a while, until the HDD finally croaked (it's had a long life of nearly a decade). I stuck with Manjaro when I got my present desktop, but that same friend of mine who introduced me to Manjaro pushed me to using Arch despite my protests. I would have wanted to switch to Endeavour instead since I was intimidated by pure Arch. But since they offered to do the "installation and set-up process" with me, I relented. (The scare quotes are there because it was not an ordinary installation process: my friend basically exorcised the Manjaro out of my system.)
I have a few distros I would like to try, off the top of my head: EndeavourOS, Fedora Silverblue, and NixOS. However, I don't think I'm a distro hopper. I would prefer that I stay with a distro unless I get pushed off it for one reason or another. Perhaps, if I've got an extra computer to test things out, I might be a bit more adventurous and go distro-hopping using that extra machine.
To date, I've only had a bit of experience with Linux Mint and Ubuntu, and a bit more experience with Manjaro and Arch Linux. I don't think fairly limited experience with those allows me to pick a favorite, but I suppose despite its reputation for being hard to use, I quite like Arch Linux. Its package manager as well its repositories really does it for me. It's changed the way I think about installing programs, as well as updating them.
Currently, I use Arch and Win10 in a dual-boot system. After I've gotten myself an AMD graphics card, I spend my time on my Arch system almost exclusively.
😃
I am not a NixOS user but I have tried it a few times and I find it really impressive for some features. Though I feel intimidated by having to learn about more features. But the thing I find impressive so far is how to switch DEs so incredibly easy after a basic NixOS install. For example in case you're currently running XFCE4 :
It's like magic! 🐧
I still intend to show this to a Linux friend one day just for fun and sharing. And with clonezilla or rescuezilla it should be pretty easy and fast to recover from backups, show it to the friend, and then put Arch Linux back from backups.
That sounds amazing, to be honest. One major concern I've got is the initial setting up. That same friend of mine (the one who exorcised my system) already has a NixOS system for their NAS, and seeing the config files kinda scared me. However, as far as I've understood their explanation, it's basically a "set-up once and forget about it" affair. It's still quite a departure from the way I've learned to do things though, so it's still intimidating.
To be honest, maybe I'm just waiting for that friend to be somewhat of an expert in NixOS, so that they can push me into using it, lol!
🙂 Well, you know I'd say you don't have to sacrifice your daily driver Linux install. I use more than one computer and SBC cause I like to tinker with Linux and BSD. In the country that I live in a reasonable (as in : I only need to browse the Internet and check email and Fediverse, no gaming or 3D rendering or pro photo editing and so on) refurbished laptop with touchscreen can be had for just 75 Euros. I'm thinking about getting another one so that I can omit some clonezilla restore/backup time.
I actually have some plans (no timeline though, it's basically just a wishlist item as of now) of making my own NAS, so there's that opportunity. And of course, yeah, getting an old machine is also an option. Who knows, maybe I'd get my hands on another old laptop that could very well be my way to testing Linux distros.