My Experience with Linux
I still remember the time when I came across my first Linux distribution. I used to download a lot of pirated games back when I was a kid and messing up my computer was not uncommon at all in those days. Usually dad had an IT guy come over and fix the computer every single time it happened but one fine day he decided to use Linux.
It was Bharat Operating System Solutions, or BOSS for short. For people who don’t know about it, BOSS is an Indian Linux distribution derived from Debian. The 10 years old me didn’t mind the sudden change of icons, start menu or the desktop composition. As long as I get to play my video games any operating system is fine.
I navigated my way through my D drive and clicked on my favourite video game’s icon, GTA San Andreas. The game did not open but I did get a window displaying some code. I tried to run the game a few times only to get frustrated more and more. I tried to search for solutions on the internet where I came across a term called ‘WINE’. People who have used Linux may have come across this term at least once. For those who don’t know what Wine is, it is a software which can run Windows program and applications on a Linux machine.
As a Linux newbie I had a hard time configuring wine. In fact I didn’t understand a single thing that the internet article told me. What is this code that I have to type? What the hell is sudo? Why can’t I download the setup and install like I normally do?.
“Linux is the worst operating system ever” was the thing I said before looking at it for the last time and eventually getting my father to switch back to windows.
Fast forward to 2013. I was fascinated by the world of hacking, all thanks to Ubisoft’s new game trailer ‘Watch Dogs’. I remember spending hours online learning all the parlour tricks that even a script kiddie can pull off, like phishing, forgot password hack etc. Suddenly I wanted to become a badass hacker like Aiden Pierce. My ambition introduced me to a new operating system — Kali Linux. Kali Linux is another Debian-derived linux distribution meant for pentesting and other cybersecurity related work. Kali Linux was packed with a plethora pentesting tools for you to play with. This was a bit overwhelming for me at first but the more I spent time the more I familiarised myself with the Linux. Initially it was very irritating. Microsoft Windows had spolied me for such a long time that I found even tasks as simple as creating a directory using the Linux terminal frustrating. ‘Why can’t I right click and create the directory?’ I would ask. But despite the complains, I went along with the follow along tutorials that forced me to use terminals and other beautiful things that linux had to offer.
Even at this stage, I wasn’t a regular Linux user because I was booting Kali through a live USB pendrive. That means after I was done learning about hacking for that day I would pull out the pendrive and boot back into Windows. So I was still more of a Windows user.
Fast forward to 2018, the first year of my college. I used to play a lot of high end games like GTA 5, Witcher 3, Far Cry etc. The problem with these games was that they are not supposed to work with the laptop I had back then. But I would do my ‘extensive research’ on running heavy games on an average spec PC and my laptop turned out to be the guinea pig that I constantly abused. There were instructions on websites which were proceeded by disclaimers in bold ‘Try this at your own risk’ or ‘Only proceed if you know what you are doing’. But I treated it like a website’s Terms & Conditions page. Eventually, my PC started to slow down and crash.
This was the time I decided to use Linux. My first Linux that I installed on my PC was Ubuntu MATE. I was mind blown by the amazing power and freedom it gave me. The packet manager which used to be a pain in my ass, when I was a newbie, now became my constant companion. The more I used linux the more I became familiar with its environment.
I soon became very comfortable with the terminal. My debugging skills started improving as I constantly tried out deifferent customisations and optimisations which would sometimes lead to a lot of problems. I would then spend from few minutes to hours on the internet looking for a fix and in that process, come across new topics to learn. One thing about linux that I feel I should tell you is never go with the default configuration because most of the time they may not be optimised for your computer. Maybe you would require to perfom some tweaks and driver updates to improve preformance and battery life, though both of them are still pretty impressive right off the bat on fresh installation.
Currently, I am using Manjaro Linux which is based on Arch. I initially began with Xfce desktop environment for better resource usage but later switched to KDE as I found out that KDE is also pretty stable and power efficient on my notebook. I am not a fan of Apple products but I just love the design and the look and feel of macOS. But again I am not willing to give even a penny for a Mac book. So what do I do?
I make my KDE plasma look just like a macOS. The animations are also a lot like the ones you see in a Mac. I easily get around 6 hours of battery life and a high speed performance after doing certain modifications like disabling unwanted services and installing certain softwares. As a college student, all my demands are met by linux. As you can see in the panel, I have placed softwares which I use as an engineering student like Visual Studio Code, Octave, Arduino IDE.
One drawback that bothers me to this day is the absence of certain proprietary softwares. In my case as you can see is MATLAB for which I use its open source alternative that is Octave. Some of you would argue that I can use wine and run MATLAB. But I must say that it is not recommended to run windows softwares on wine (not that you can’t but it is always good to stick with the linux version or alternative of the software). Plus the idea of running these proprietary softwares on wine due to the absence of its linux version is a bit of a turn-off.
Now that I am a linux user and have witnessed the true power of linux operating systems, I get filled with disgust at the sight of Windows. I am not trying to say Windows is bad because even Windows has its own advantage of being a proprietary operating system. The thing is once you start using linux you just don’t want to go back to any other operating system.
