Linux - My History & Opinions
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Preface
I don’t have strong feelings or convictions when it comes to the Free Software debate. I adopt a pragmatic approach to computer use, tending to choose software that best suits a given job, though I am increasingly concerned about the trend towards diminished user privacy.
One could of course argue that the principle of Free Software is a direct answer to issues such as Software as a Service, subscription models or serving ads within operating systems, but I take issue with extending this approach to the point of limiting software or system usability in the real world.
Linux has always been a hobby of mine that I would only consider using as a primary OS if it was provably the best tool for the job. Thanks to the aforementioned trends in the IT industry, as well as Linux as a whole improving, this appears to be rapidly becoming the case.
How I Started
I’ve been a Linux user since 2010 and have since used a wide range of distros and software across many different devices.
My first Linux distro was Ubuntu 10.04 running on a Dell Inspiron 530. At the time, I jumped into Linux with minimal understanding after discovering that alternatives to Windows and Mac OS X exist. This installation was promptly broken after a failed attempt to replace the desktop manager.
Shortly after that, wanting to try out a more minimalistic setup, I switched to Debian with Xfce 4 for over a year.
In early 2011, I gathered enough old components to build a PC out of spare parts. It was housed in a “case” made out of a cardboard box (sadly I have long since lost all photos of this build). I’ve decided to give Arch Linux a try in order to “learn Linux”. This was around the time tiling window managers started gaining popularity, so I attempted putting together a setup consisting of AwesomeWM, using the terminal whenever possible. This got me started with scripting, learning vim and a variety of Linux concepts. Using a completely new desktop metaphor interested me as a new experience, but even after a few months of use, I couldn’t get used to it as see it as a significantly more efficient or usable experience. Dealing with many graphical applications became a lot more cumbersome.
In late 2012, I obtained a higher-spec gaming PC and installed Windows 8, shockingly the first version of Windows which I bought a retail copy of. I didn’t hate it quite as much as the rest of the internet and used it as my primary OS with Linux being a secondary/learning hobbyist option I ran on various spare PCs.
Nvidia & Niche Hardware
Nvidia GPU compatibility issues were a major reason I didn’t adopt Linux as my primary OS after 2012. – Until recently, drivers and performance were sub-par and it was difficult to avoid running into issues. For me personally, even minor graphical glitches in the user interface have always been a dealbreaker.
Using other niche hardware such as various external DACs (and consequently having to fight Linux audio even more so than usual) or capture cards certainly didn’t help matters.
Windows has therefore been my primary desktop OS to this day.
Given the recent improvements with Wayland and Nvidia drivers, Linux might soon become my primary OS again, depending on how Windows progresses over the next few major versions.