How I Use Linux as My Desktop OS

History

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My first interactions with Linux were in early 2007, when I installed it on my home computer.

It was Mandriva Linux, but quickly I switched to Ubuntu, which I used for a couple of years, dual-booting with Windows. I used Windows out of a necessity to run Adobe Creative Suite software.

I ordered Ubuntu on a disk, and it was delivered to my home! I have some collection of disks from that time, it was Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Edubuntu.

Technically, my first distro was Mandriva, but on practice, it was Ubuntu what I used for a long time as a beginner. It’s just I took that Mandriva disk from someone, and basically had no other option to choose.

I remember me having some issues with network, one of which forced me to re-install Windows, before I got courage to try Ubuntu again. And a friend of mine, the one who was very well versed with Linuxes, he told me I shouldn’t be afraid and should already be downloading Gentoo Handbook.

Unfortunately, I didn’t listen to him back then, I wasn’t confident in my skills.

I managed to make Ubuntu work as I needed, and I switched from it entirely only when I bought my first MacBook, and switched from Linux and Windows to macOS (named Mac OS X back then).

I used macOS since then, for 10 years. Only this year I came back to using Linux.

macOS

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Linux hepled me switch that Windows paradigm with drive letters for virtual disks, it’s weird file system and many other things I took for granted thinking that’s how operating system should look like.

I wasn’t too heavy on customisation my Linux system, as I was busy with developing my career. So I used it mostly as-is.

Switching to macOS helped me change things tremendously, because by default it’s a much nicer system (visually and UX-wise). Also, macOS helped me cement this difference with Windows. By learning what’s common with Linux and macOS, I learned what’s unusual with Windows. I had to re-learn the basics and I had to forget the old ways of this weirdo Windows.

These days when I see people that know nothing but Windows, and they are able to think only in Windows paradigms, it literally scares me.

I cannot even explain why clearly. Probably, it’s some trauma of mine. I feel like it’s living in an autocratic state, being opressed, and not knowing that alternatives exist, and it doesn’t have to be that way.

This Apple system left a huge mark on my personality. I left it not because it’s bad. I’d say it’s a great system that would work for almost everyone, especially those who struggle with Windows.

I left macOS because I’d grown tired of it becoming more and more complex. I enjoyed this golden era of macOS before it became overly complicated, and was mostly well-polished Unix system with a great deal of popular apps.

Aesthetics

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With Linux, I was very disappointed with its visual aesthetics, to me it was just absolute garbage. Even Windows looked many times better, not to say macOS. I tried to use many community mods, but they all looked garbage to me.

That’s how I came up with this idea that this time I should make my own Linux system, not installing pre-defined one, like Ubuntu.

I heard good thinkgs about Pop!_OS, but ignored it for two reasons:

• As I’ve said, I wanted to not use a ready-made system, as chances it’ll be visual garbage were high;
• it’s weird, but I didn’t like this weird name, and decided it’s just another nerdy distro.

I have never tried Pop!_Os, so take it with a grain of salt. I’ve heard many good things about it. It’s just not my cup of tea.

That’s how I ended up with Arch Linux.

Arch Linux

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Installing Arch Linux was both quite a challenge, and also very easy.

The challenge lied mostly in my ability to evaluate my own skills and lack of self-confidence. I was afraid of it, I considered myself mostly a designer, and I wasn’t too active to meddle with my own system, macOS. I forgot many things about a Linux system (or, in other words, an open-source operating system), and I thought installing it would be very difficult.

There are legends about Arch Linux being non-friendly to novices, and I still considered myself one. I’ve read How Linux Works by Brian Ward just to be prepared for this scary Arch Linux install.

It’s very funny to re-read it some time later. I bet any other experienced Linux user would giggle too. Sir, did you have this fear of something unknown, to learn it’s not that scary, huh?

Turned out, installing Arch Linux is a trivial task, if you’re not a novice and you understand what you’re doing. I’d call it the easiest operating system installation I can imagine. If you did that Arch install a number of times, you can install your system by memory within minutes. It’s impressive. This paradigm shift is impressive.

Probably the primary lesson I’ve learned with Arch Linux is that I need to learn evaluating my strong and weak points. Linux is my strong skill, not a weak one. Most times, I do understand what I’m doing indeed, unless it’s something very complicated.

Overall, Arch Linux is a great system. It was very stable for me on a desktop, and as my server system too. I had Debian (the system believed to be rock-solid and super-stable) failing on me multiple times, for no particular reason. (I’m experienced with Debian, so I know what I’m doing. Yet, I broke a few systems and years later I gained no understanding what that was.)

With Arch Linux, I haven’t break a single system, even 5 years later (upon revisiting this story). I use till this day on most of my (personal) devices, including servers.

I think I’d write a separate story about Arch Linux only, just later.

Tiling Window Manager

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Once upon a time, when I was using Windows and I had 512 MB of RAM, I discovered some third-party shell for Windows Explorer, explorer.exe. Its name was Aston Shell, and it allowed a great deal of customisation. But my favourite feature wasn’t that. It was this option to use any keyboard shorctut for many actions. I’ve used it extensively, I had shortcuts for all of my tasks with the computer. Opening a browser, file explorer, text editor, instant messenger, email, everything. My workflow was keyboard-driven.

Back then, I realised widly popular minimalistic dark theme¹, by the way.

This time, I’ve been sold on the idea of a tiling window manager.

That changed everything for me, and it’s difficult to use my computer differently now.

What’s a tiling window manager?

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Let’s start with a window manager. In short, it’s a thing that draws windows and menus on a computer screen. It has its own logic. As much as Windows (the operating system by Microsoft) has its own default window manager, macOS has its default one, Linux has many of them. They have different logic.

• E.g. Windows has these three buttons _[]X on the right;
• and macOS has these same buttons on the left, and they are three circles without icons, unless you hover your cursor over them.

That’s different things in different window managers. Theoretically, everything can be changed. Those buttons can go to the center, to the bottom, outside of the window, be hidden entirely, you name it. Anything.

Anything can be different. All that is a work of a window manager.

Logic

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Tiling window manager usually follows one interesting paradigm, it opens all the apps in full-screen mode, and when you open one more app, it opens it on the right, making both apps half-screened. There’s no buttons anywhere, and everything is made with keyboard shortcuts only. There are many of them, each one having its own logic. Most of them are like that.

Usually, they are very minimalistic. They’re configured via a text file (which is a common thing in Linux world), and there are no menus by default. These tiling window managers are difficult, but once you mastered one, there’s almost no way back. Even if you’ll come back to be a normie, you’ll greatly miss some of the features, and more likely will have this itch until you find your way of implementing the thing you miss.

For me, the benefits were many, but I’d highlight just two:

• It’s all keyboard driven once again, and after so many years of using very different user interfaces, I can come back to my happy place of running everything I need from a keyboard. Once again, I have a keyboard shortcut for everything I use.
• It’s highly minimalistic, so it’d difficult to make it ugly, as everything is done by me.

Virtual Desktops

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I believe most of tiling window managers follow similar paradigm of virtual desktops. They are usually mapped to Super key (it’s Win key on Windows and Cmd or ⌘ key on Apple keyboards) + a number from 1 to 0. I use extra function keys too, those are from F1 to F12, and Esc + Poweroff too, so the entire upper row.

Virtual desktops are of an additional value for me, as they also accessible via hotkeys. Now I’m used to having some apps on some virtual desktops. So, e.g. my browser is always ⌘ + Esc for me, always. There’s no random times ⌘ + Tab any more, it’s always consistent ⌘ + Esc and I’m in my browser. Same goes for all the apps that I use on my computer.

Once I learned this, and remembered the logic I invented to follow my way of working, it’s super convenient and fast. Using anything else becomes complicated and obtrusive.

As the bonus point, such a window manager² consumes almost no memory, circa 200 MB. Usually, a modern system eats up 10 times more (2 GB) the memory, or even more.

I am yet to learn how to come back. Because at this moment I feel like I won’t ever come back. It’s just too good.