60 lines
3.6 KiB
Markdown
60 lines
3.6 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Switching to Linux"
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date: 2023-04-08T15:44:15+02:00
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---
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Going from hearing about this word "Linux" from one of my computer geek
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friends, to installing it as my first VM, to making the switch, to then spread
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the word about how cool it is and the practical benefits that it can provide. I
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love Linux! And I got tied into it is ecosystem so hard that going back to
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Windows would instantly harm my productivity and make everything much more
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difficult. Ignoring the war of Windows - MacOS - Linux, I am going to talk about
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my switch. How did I switch to Linux? How can YOU switch to Linux? What is the
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safest way to switch without losing all of your data that you accumulated over
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the years?
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Before switching, here is something you have to know. Linux will be different
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than Windows and even if you think you wll be okay without Windows because of
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XYZ (say for example: you are a software engineer or something and know your
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way around computers), you must accept the fact that there will be a learning
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process lying ahead of you. And if you wll skip it, it will most likely end
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badly. Keep your curiosity and goals up and you might just make it passed the 5
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reinstalls you are most likely going to do before getting quite comfortable with
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Linux.
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Much of the applications you used on Windows will have different names on
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Linux, and at some point or another, you will have to get familiar with the
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terminal. So the sooner you get used to CLI (Command Line Interface), the
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better. Watch out for the commands you copy-paste into your terminal,
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especially at the beginning. Not just because someone might want to steal your
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data, but also because you might end up breaking your computer accidentally.
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Acknowledge that you are going to make mistakes in the future and start making
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backups of your files as soon as you know you are storing valuable information
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into your disk. That was (and still is) one of the most fun challenges for me
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personally. I love designing a whole backup system for my Linux and I am
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constantly updating it as my demands are slowly shifting. For example: recently
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I have been introduced the idea of file recovery - and even though I knew you
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could technically read deleted files off the disk it did not scare me that much.
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But now that I know how easy it is, I am paying a lot more attention to how my
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backup scripts copy files from one disk to another. And that is the beauty!
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Using Linux will be so cool you cannot even imagine! The deeper you will go the
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more interesting it will get!
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With that said, you might think that my switch was flawless? Pfttt, do not make
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me laugh. Did I ever tell you about that one time when I selected the wrong
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disk for installation and ended up losing 1TB of data? Not to mention all the
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hiccups I had to deal with, such as dependency hell, grub booting me into a
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shell rather than a display manager, Windows deciding to fuck up my Linux
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installation (that is when I was still dual booting it), and so on. In short,
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it was a pain to get where I am today. And that is what taught me Linux. Making
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mistakes is the key to learning.
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Thankfully, after 2-3 solid years of experimenting with Linux, I can say that
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I am pretty stable. I know my way around Arch quite well, but I am not negating
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the fact, that I still have a lot to learn. There is probably tens of thousands
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of tools in the Arch Wiki that I have not heard of. And if you happen to know
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some cool tools, for crying out loud do not hesitate to share them online.
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Linux-passionates will love you for sharing those incredible resources, or for
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just having the thought of sharing. And so, that is what I want to achieve with
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this blog. Sharing is carying.
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