1 Year Linux Challenge: The Story

Operating Systems & Open Source Linux
1

First the Laptop

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The Specs

  • 11.6 Inch 1366x768 Screen
  • I.O - 1 USB 3.0 Port / 2 USB 2.0 Ports / 1 SD card Slot / 1 HDMI Port / 1 Charging Port
  • CPU: Intel i3 4030U CPU at 1.9Ghz with 4 threads
  • 4GBs of RAM (Which are expandable)
  • 500GB HDD 5400RPM Drive (Which I later Upgraded to a Samsung SSD)
  • Broadcom Wi-Fi Card (Which I rightlfully set on fire, and also replaced for an Intel one)
  • No Backlit Keys
  • 360 Degree Hinge for Tablet Mode (which I don't use)

I've started this challenge with the intention of learning Linux and to experience a "Change of Scenery" on October 19th 2015. prior to settling with Manjaro (An Arch Linux based Distro) I originally went Distribution hopping. for people who may not understand the concept of distro hopping, you are basically jumping from Linux distro to Linux distro until you settle with one you like and enjoy. in my early experiences I've tried,

  • Ubuntu (Which I hated)
  • Fedora (which has legendary security support but I wasn't so fond of for some reason)
  • OpenSUSE (I could not get to work for the life of me)
  • Antergos (I didn't like the performance at the time)
  • Manjaro (I eventually settled with this disto in the beginning prior to moving to Arch Linux ultimately)

I've always had a fondness for GNOME as my primary Desktop environment, I didn't want to try anything else, I was stubborn and I loved having everything in front me. for example GNOME's extension support which allowed to have the weather on my taskbar, App Menu support and excellent themeing support. I will admit this was the only distro and Fedora were the only distros that had Internet connectivity working out the box. I later learned that Broadcom which was the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chipset within my laptop provided almost no support for Linux what so ever. it angered me beyond reasoning, I bought an Intel Wi-Fi card, opened up my laptop and removed it from and installed the Intel one. after a reboot internet worked perfectly.

As time went on I made it my mission to install Arch Linux since my love for Linux grew. Of Course Manjaro was based upon Arch Linux, but required you to manually configure everything via BASH (Or the Linux Command Line) around 4 or 5 months I still couldn't do it. I was busy balancing school and work, I didn't have time to learn how to navigate through Directory trees through BASH. but I learned little by little as time went on.

Around 7 months into the Challenge, I felt confident in installing Arch Linux. so I made a Arch Linux boot drive via Rufus on Windows and went to town. and followed the Arch Wiki. No internet connectivity whatsoever. I was confused. I couldn't understand why. and it donned upon me that I didn't know there was a built in utility from the Linux command line called Wi-Fi menu which allowed you to connect to WPA2 based networks which mine of course is. After around 3 days or so, after figuring out how stuff worked. I was successful. I installed Arch Linux, and configured everything to my liking.

After the first year. I decided to learn other things. some which were necessary and useful
* Manually configuring a Kernel
* Adding Some Security To My System
* Learning pacman (The Arch Linux Package Manager)
* Diagnosing issues
* Learning Systemd (The default initialization system of Linux)
* Learned to try other Desktop environments. (Which turns out I hated all of them except GNOME and Budgie Desktop)

I learned all in a few months. and to this day I've moved away from Windows on the mobile space. I still use Windows on my Desktop. but All my mobile devices run Linux for the better. I've become so confident with Linux that I even made quick tutorial on how to install Arch Linux. and I became so proficient that I learned how to install Arch Linux in about 7 or 8 minutes. which was an achievment for me considering about a year and a half ago, if you asked me to do that, I would of been confused.

If you ever felt like you wanted to try out something new or move away from Windows. I totallly recommend Linux it's something that made me realize in the software world there are alternatives and they are great.

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I've moved away from GNOME into Budgie Desktop

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The Forum on Linux
@Eden

My Tutorial on installing Arch Linux. and little things not mentioned in the Wiki on the Installation guide.

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2

Care to elaborate on your findings as far as distro hopping? You didn't really explain why you didn't like Fedora, and Ubuntu (though the reasons listed for OpenSUSE and Antergos are sufficient, I think).

I am also interested in hearing what made you want to switch away from Gnome and use Bungie, as well as why you didn't like other DEs, like KDE, XFCE, etc etc etc.

I am interested in hearing the honest opinions of someone who has made the move recently. Seeing things through the eyes of someone who hasn't really had much experience with the Linux scene is refreshing, so I would like to know what made you feel comfortable and what drove you away about those things.

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I think the appeal of Budgie over Gnome or XFCE is that it's new and fresh. Budgie sets out to mimic the Chrome OS design, while still being similar to Gnome 2, which many preferred (Why MATE is a DE).

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Fedora at the time, required a lot of un-neccessary tinkering for my taste. I had no idea how to remove or add repositories, The software centre was an absolute shit show. also lack of some font selection was a minor issue in terms of a customizability stand point, I wish it had more fonts. also I didn't like that I needed to add repositories to install certain packages.

Ubuntu on the other hand, my hatred for Ubuntu and to this day I have a hatred for it, even though some time in the future there's a good chance I'm going to have to use apt-get / apt / in the future for more enterprise grade distros. is apt requires a lot of un-neccessary typing for my taste when it comes to installing packages from BASH. I detested Unity 7, and I didn't like all the built in search feature. As for example with apt-get.

In Fedora, if you wish to install chromium at least a year or so ago you had to add a repo, update dnf then install chromium like so.

Done. chromium is installed.

In Ubuntu

It's a stupid argument yes, but It's very brain aneurysm inducing for me. there is only one damn chromium browser. adding browser to the end of the package is just dumb.

In Manjaro, Antergos, and Arch Linux to install chromium

And done chromium is installed in Arch Linux.

As for my disdain for other D.Es. I've never tried XFCE, though I have tried, KDE, GNOME, Budgie, Cinnamon and MATE

  • KDE had WAAAAAAAAY too much customization for me. and I didn't like a lot of the system apps required for KDE.

  • Cinnamon & MATE on the other hand, I felt was somewhat of a poor man's excuse for GNOME 2. to me didn't make it any better and just made everything a bit cluttered and in the way sort to speak.

  • As for Moving towards Budgie Desktop for the "Greater Good" in all honesty the reason why is because functionally it performed like a hybrid of the ChromeOS Desktop and Windows 10 to some degree but used a lot of GNOME / GTK3 based software to get it done. also it was very minimalistic on how it got this done.
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Fedora has fairly strict package standards that chromium just never reached. Its in now which is great, so it eventually got there. But they just weren't going to put it in without it being solid.

I've never tried budgie, i should maybe give it a spin at some point. fairly happy in gnome atm.

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It was brought to my attention that Budgie is moving away from GTK3 and moving to QT5 which is the toolkit that KDE uses.. I hope it doesn't ruin my experience but Budgie 11 will be based on qt5 and not GTK3.

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Qt is pretty good. and very widely used.. basically everywhere. Fairly chunky task, do they have a lost to port?

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the devs of Budgie said that GTK3 was giving them issues to the point of no return so they're moving away from it, but the desktop environment will still be dependant on a lot of GNOME system software. so I'm curious as to how that will work.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Budgie-From-GNOME-To-Qt

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I wonder if they will move most of their code to C++ or just use a C interface with Qt's QML for the font end stuff.

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Most of the code is written with C++ which is why there were conflicts with GTK3.

they plan on using QT5 but will not use KDE's libraries and will not have plasma compatibility.