linux.md

An Operating System That Actually Works

Sayonara, Microsoft Windows

In a move that surprised absolutely no one, I have officially uninstalled Windows. Every month for the last couple of years, I have been crashing out at this garbage operating system. But if you expected me to join the Apple ecosystem, you’d be wrong. I didn’t switch to macOS – I went with Linux.

So as I’m sure you can imagine, the entire process was pretty interesting! I am a newly appointed Linux User™, which means my first order of business is to talk about Linux. While I’m not suggesting everyone do this, my particular background and experience might serve as a more practical reference for anyone considering a move themselves.

My intention isn’t to validate or defend every possible motivation for abandoning Windows. I consider my philosophical views on corporate technology to be an evolving position. And I’m still figuring out what my principles mean when it comes to Microsoft as a company and their practices. But I do know one thing for certain. I stand on business. And I really hate Microsoft Windows.

The Problem(s) with Microsoft Windows

If Windows has zero haters, that means I’m dead. Using macOS had radicalized me. However, I disagree with some common criticisms thrown around online. Windows 11 is a clear improvement over Windows 10 in both performance and UX consistency. The entire concept of an “AI PC” or integrating a chatbot into your operating system doesn’t seriously offend me. Furthermore, Microsoft’s decades-spanning backwards compatibility is remarkable and deserves acknowledgement. There is a culture war that exists around technology right now, and much of it is gross and weird. Many people came to the right conclusions about Microsoft and Windows, but they’re lacking both serious evidence and reasoning.

Using Microsoft Windows is an embarrassing experience. I feel embarrassed using it. The operating system has several core systemic failures that are perpetually broken, like search indexing and file management. Setup automatically creates tens of thousands of broken extension associations and context menu actions for Microsoft products that are actually impossible to remove. It is paid software that is both slow and ridden with ads out-of-the-box. Windows Update also threatens terrible, undocumented, jargon-heavy features like “audio enhancement” that are are actively hostile to art and require multiple settings menus to disable. And I am so tired of basic applications holding my computer hostage because they cannot connect to the internet.

Why This Took So Long

Switching to Linux was not an easy decision for me to make. And I will get into those reasons later. But most of my professional and creative life is equally held hostage to the Windows ecosystem. Most of my projects use software exclusive to Windows that do not perform reliably under Wine. More importantly, I did not have the emotional bandwidth to dedicate even a couple of days to something like this.

You also have to consider the “productivity trap”. For a majority of my early 20s, I was a victim of this phenomenon. During that period of my life, most of my energy went into preparing for projects than actually executing them. I’ve ruined so many people’s lives by introducing them to the Nanami-tan Windows 7 Ricing Guide and /g/. And I could easily spend months just messing around with Linux.

But none of this really matters really anymore. I’ve crossed the metaphorical event horizon into becoming Linuxbro. So instead, let’s just break down what actually happened and what my thoughts were through this entire process.

Transitioning to Linux

Deciding on a Linux distribution

My choice was Linux Mint, specifically the Cinnamon desktop environment. Maybe that sounds boring to you, but this was a deliberate decision. For one, Linux Mint is actually quite good. I’ve heard it called the “Windows User Distro,” but this feels too reductive. Building an operating system that sits right between simple usability and power-user is extremely difficult. Second, I needed something that required very little setup and had serious stability. I needed to get back into my projects both quickly and reliably.

Everyone has heard a horror story involving someone installing some wild Linux build, spending weeks configuring their desktop, running into friction, and destroying all of their ability to work. Linux Mint is the complete opposite experience. It’s as if someone took the elegance of Windows XP and picked up where they left off. I have used other distros and desktop environments, including i3 and Plasma. But I genuinely believe Linux Mint was the right call for me.

Applications

As an extremely unreasonable person, I will avoid hardware that requires middleware, and I choose peripherals that store its profile to the device itself so I don’t have to install anything. This meant that everything just worked out of the box for me. And most of the software I use in my daily life is deliberately simple, or offers a native Linux build. Like mpv and FFmpeg.

It’s no surprise that productivity and developer software is well-covered on Linux. Obsidian and VSCodium work just as I expected. But I had also discovered genuinely great alternatives to my favorite Windows tools, like Fancy Tiles and OpenSnitch.

In the weeks prior, I had been proactively writing down the applications and tasks I used regularly. So it was surprising how painless this process had actually been. Linux Mint ships with its own set of core applications, called “X-Apps”. Many of these are maintained forks of older, stable GTK/GNOME applications. And the majority them earn my seal of approval.

Games

I would be remiss to not address gaming on Linux. It is unfortunately a major component of my social life, and many others’. Yes, anti-cheat makes some games unplayable. But the development Value put into Proton is astonishing. Within the first week of installation, I was able to play a recently released multiplayer game with proximity chat and everything worked flawlessly. What.

Cloud gaming is still a last-ditch option. And although several of my favorite multiplayer games – such as Stardew Valley and Baldur’s Gate 3 – have native Linux builds, I will happily accept a 10% performance hit if it means not inconveniencing my friends.

Even Unity, my latest fixation and preferred game engine, ran fine without any problems. I was able to load up old projects and import assets with zero issue. This is a huge win for me, and it greatly simplifies my future goals in solo game development.

The Limitations of Linux

Creative Software

While my own experience has been largely positive, not everything was perfect. I’d maintain that many of the problems I ran into were self-inflicted and wouldn’t apply to the average user, but not all of them were solvable. I went into this fully aware that I would be giving up some critical foundations of my everyday creative-life.

So it’s time to address my greatest sacrifice: walking away from FL Studio. FL Studio has changed my life, and remains one of the most rewarding pieces of software I have ever owned. I paid for it once, and every update was exciting. It made songwriting fun. And it is arguably the best DAW I’ve used in the last decade. But the brutal reality is using FL Studio on Linux, in its current state, is completely unsustainable.

I’ve managed to largely circumvent the need for native VST/CLAP plugins. This is thanks to tools like yabridge, and the fact that my mixer is now heavily populated by excellent plugdata plugins. I have really a strong grasp of the fundamentals of sound design, song arrangement, and post-production. So the primary question I’m faced with is deciding between REAPER or Bitwig.

Other causalities in the creative suite include Affinity Photo 2 and Adobe After Effects. And while I haven’t found a solid solution for the gap Affinity has left (although it performs fine under Wine), I am increasingly more confident about relying on Blender for my motion graphics hobby.

Conclusion

Was it a success?

Yes. But saying this migration was just “successful” doesn’t do it justice. I not only grossly overestimated the challenge, but the entire experience broke every preconceived notion I had about the Linux experience. I was wrong in probably the possible best way.

Should you move to Linux?

It’s a good question. Should you actually consider moving to Linux? If you had asked me before this experience, I probably would have told you “no”. But now, my answer is far less clear.

There were several minor factors that influenced my decision-making that I haven’t mentioned yet. For one, I didn’t start this until I finished my commitments to two major projects this year. Both required Windows. And making the move to Linux would have not only inconvenienced the team, but functionally prevented me from working with anyone.

My social life also isn’t contingent on my ability to join every game night or play the latest release. And even though I’m not a programmer, my high technical proficiency means that I can handle most troubleshooting issues I would have ran into.

So if you’re in a position where you’re both confident and can afford to make the switch, you should give it a shot. This is especially true if you haven’t checked in on the state of Linux in the last couple of years – you’ll likely be pleasantly surprised as I was.

Was it worth it?

I really enjoyed this experience. Moving to Linux was the most fun I’ve had with a computer in a very long time. It feels so nice to use an operating system that doesn’t insult my intelligence and respects my time. And it brought a wonderful dose of joy to my life when I really needed it most.

So, yeah.