My Linux journey

Hey everyone, after writing about my Hyprland experience, I thought I should share with you how I came to be a Linux desktop user in the first place. So here’s how it went!

Deepin

It all started back in 2017-2018 when I got fed up with Windows and finally decided to give Linux a try. I was 17 at the time.

I looked at various distros and Deepin caught my eye because of its shiny Mac-like design (sigh baby steps, alright?). To be fair, it actually looked way better than the blocky Windows 10 GUI. Also, I liked that it was Debian-based, which was the preferred parent distro from my initial impression.

I installed it as a second OS on my main desktop PC (I wasn’t committed enough to wipe Windows yet) and the process was actually very quick and easy. WAY more pleasant than installing Windows.

I don’t have any screenshots of my Deepin-era, but this stock image of Deepin 15 is close enough

Debian

I quickly realized how janky Deepin was and how all the UI sugarcoat was actually getting in my way.

So, after using Deepin for a few months, I decided to embrace minimalism and installed pure Debian with XFCE, stripping it down to an empty bar containing only workspaces, keyboard layout, and date/time. I hid all the desktop icons, and configured a simple Conky panel.

My earliest Linux screenshot: Debian XFCE

It was around that time that Valve released Proton and I could play most of the games from my Steam library effortlessly. I was completely blown away and it solidified my resolve to keep using Linux as my main OS.

Already when I was on Deepin I started forcing myself to do as many things as possible through the terminal. In XFCE I continued this habit, accompanied by 2 vertical terminal panels running with Terminator.

Java game engine I developed by following ThinMatrix’s LWJGL tutorial series in 2019 - running from Terminator

Arch

Debian is an awesome OS, but anytime I needed a specific up-to-date program I had to either add an external repository, manually download a DEB package, or compile it myself. I was never really into Flatpacks or AppImages for some reason - I always prefer to run native executables.

I realized that I actually wanted to be on cutting-edge, so, after researching for a bit and doing a test install on a VM, I switched to Arch Linux. To my surprise, it wasn’t actually that hard at all. I just followed the official installation guide.

I also realized that I was basically only using XFCE as a window manager, so I decided to try an actual window manager instead - i3. I configured it with Polybar and I’ve been a happy tiling WM user ever since. No need to use Terminator anymore! (which started to feel a bit bloated to me, due to it being just a bunch of GNOME terminals, I guess).

Oh and I could finally say “I use Arch BTW” to my friends (most of whom have no idea what Arch is).

My Arch Linux i3 setup in 2021

And the rest is history I guess. I’ve been an i3 user for 6 years until a couple of months ago I switched to Hyprland. You can read that article if you’d like to learn more about how it went.

Conclusion

It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that Linux has changed my life. It actually sparked my interest to learn, hack things and experiment. Try, fail, learn, try again. It is also an irreplaceable tool in my professional career. Every job I had so far - Linux was right there to help me get things done.

Is Linux flawless? Absolutely not. I had several catastrophic system failures and unexpected breakages over the years. But every such occurence was an invaluable learning opportunity which helped me grow.

So, if you’re still on the fence, give Linux a try. Install it on a VM or a spare laptop and mess around with it. I’m confident you won’t regret it :-)

Thanks for reading! Theo out.