Linux is an operating system people use to make fun of you if you use it. I honestly hate when people think about it as an OS for nerds because Linux is used in servers around the world. In today’s article, I’m going to explain how I got to know Linux as a desktop operating system and I’ll give you my thoughts about it at the end. If you want more articles like this, let me know in my Discord server’s #suggestions channel.

My first Linux experience

My first experience with Linux was during the pandemic in 2020. I wanted to get rid of Windows because my laptop was dying, and I wanted to bring it back to life. That’s how my Linux experience officially started. I tried Ubuntu first, but it didn’t go as well as I thought, so I switched to Linux Mint, the distribution everyone was and still does recommend to people getting started.

I was happy with Linux, as it resurrected that laptop from the dead. I could play Minecraft at a smooth frame rate, and I could still do all my schoolwork there. The battery efficiency was, honestly, better than on Windows. While I faced some issues, they were minor, and I was able to fix them. I felt satisfied with Linux. Even if I didn’t understand Linux entirely, I understood that I took back control of my device.

It all fell down when, in September 2020, my laptop’s hard disk died. I could not boot into my system, and I even tried to install Windows with no avail. I thought this was done for me, and I remember blaming Linux for some weird reason.

My first workstation

Thankfully for me, I had enough money to buy my first real workstation: a prebuilt PC that I would much later regret buying because of the date it was built. I bought an MSI Aegis 3 (2017) which costed 621 euros if we include the entire setup. Now, the entire setup would cost around 800 euros, but I’m happy with the purchases I made.

I bought this prebuilt PC in October 2020, and I would still use Windows as I still didn’t feel safe installing any other operating system for some reason. I was happy with the setup at the time because all the games I would throw at it would be handled just fine. I could even do multiple tasks at the same time without worrying too much, which was great for me as I never felt that with my old laptop.

Problems came when everything was noticeably slower than it was before. Minecraft Bedrock Edition switched to their RenderDragon graphics engine to render things; Discord became slow to use; and, most importantly, Windows became slow, especially with Windows 11. I like Windows 11’s design better than Windows 10, but it makes the system slow. Not only that, it’s somehow harder to be productive on Windows 11, despite tabs being added for the first time in File Explorer.

What’s better about Linux

After being frustrated at that, I tried installing Linux as my main operating system. While I’m not able to use it as my main operating system due to things like the NVIDIA drivers being a mess on Wayland (but also in general) or Minecraft Bedrock not working properly, I can safely say that Linux is much better than Windows. Competition is always good, and that’s what I like to see in this space.

Windows may be good for gaming and content creation (in fact, I still use it as my main operating system), but it’s always going to lack in the customization space. The reasons are simple:

  1. Productivity is so much better. The UI/UX in the KDE Plasma desktop environment perfectly fit my needs, and it’s also really customizable. All the programs I need perfectly run on Linux: my office suite of choice, LibreOffice, runs completely fine without any issues, and Okular, a powerful PDF viewer, also runs without issues. Finally, the developer environment is so much better on Linux: things are snappier than on Windows, and everyone likes the Linux terminal! Linux is also really lightweight on processes; there’s no Microsoft Edge running in the background.
  2. You can fix issues and customize the system. Because Linux is free and open source, people can easily contribute to it. Not only that, but the software on Linux is made to be customizable. Are you facing an issue with your hardware? No problem; you can fix that (this does not apply to every device, but you get what I mean).
  3. Telemetry isn’t forced on you. People in the Linux community take privacy very seriously. If there’s any telemetry system, it will usually be an opt-in system used to diagnose issues with the software you run, so bugs can be fixed, unlike what happens with proprietary software.