Why I Switched To Linux! And How It's Going...

what is going on guys welcome back in this video today I'm going to talk a little bit about why I switch to using Linux fulltime and how it is going so let us get right into [Music] ited all right so roughly 5 months ago I decided to switch to Linux as my full-time operating system away from Windows and in particular I switched to poos which is a distribution based on auntu which is a distribution based on Debian so you could say popos is also based on Debian and I posted this here on my channel 5 months ago roughly 5 months ago switched to Linux full-time let's see how it goes not missing Windows yet with this beautiful screenshot of a couple of terminal Windows perfectly aligned in tiling mode with C Matrix neofetch btop just nice to look at and from this day on I've been basically using popos as my main operating system on my desktop PC on my laptop every single day and in this video today I just want to talk a little bit about this I want to talk about the EXP experience of going uh of switching to Linux full-time from Windows of using Linux as your full-time operating system I want to talk about my setup I want to talk about the reasons I switched in the first place about what I maybe Miss at this point uh from Windows what I missed in the beginning but what I don't really care about anymore because this is a different thing some things you just cannot replace on Linux and some things are just inconvenient in the beginning but you forget about them because actually it's just getting used to it um and I want to talk a little bit about this whole process and everything around it so this can maybe be a decision-making help for you if you want to switch to Linux deciding whether you want to actually do it or not so first of all my setup is a very simple one I have two hard drives in my PC I have a Linux hard drive and a Windows hard drive now I still switch to Linux fulltime 99% of the time I boot into Linux I just have the windows hard drive because I cannot afford to not be able to run something because we all know that the main problem with Linux is compatibility and this is something that the Linux Community cannot really do something about because it's other companies not providing software for Linux it's not Linux being you know incapable to run it it's it's just a result of other companies not making it compatible with Linux but I need to have Windows as a backup if I need to run something I cannot just say oh I cannot run it because I have Linux I need to have the capability to run everything and you know Windows is the most compatible system um having said that I only use Windows for occasional gaming whiches doesn't happen too often and in the rare case where I have to run a software where I have to open a file that I cannot open with the alternative software on Linux properly this includes sometimes working with Advanced Excel files this includes sometimes filling Advanced PDF files but 99% of the time I use only Linux so it's still a switch to Linux full-time with the option of using Windows occasionally also since I'm using the same uh PC here I have the ability to access my windows hard drive here through this um file explorer so I can browse my Windows system from Linux here which is very convenient uh so this is my setup so it's a dual boot setup where I 99% of the time boot into Linux so let's talk a little bit about the reasons I switch to Linux so why did I decide that I don't want to use Windows as my full as as my full-time operating system anymore why did I decide that Linux is the way to go and I want to use Linux fulltime as my main operating system or a Linux based system um and there are multiple reasons for that one of the main reasons for me is just that it is optimized and very convenient for developers and this happens in multiple different ways and one of the main ways in which this is the case is the terminal I can just open up a terminal here and basically I can do everything with it this is extremely powerful in Linux it's native I don't need some emulation I don't need the WSL the windows subsystem for Linux to run Linux I have Linux the system is Linux and I can access every part of it fit through the terminal and the terminal is an extremely powerful tool I can do so many things in the terminal and I know that this is something that not developers or non-developers don't really care about or maybe don't even like because they have to use the terminal uh even though they don't want to but for me as a programmer for me as someone who really likes using command lines this is a very big selling point of of Linux of Linux based systems that the terminal is so powerful and that I can do so many things in the terminal and that everything is so convenient with the terminal um this includes stuff like using neovim I can use neovim on Windows I can use it with CMD I can use it um in Powershell I can use it in the WSL but the experience of using terminal tools is not even comparable to Linux because in Windows you don't really use the terminal too often so if I want to use neovim I basically have to force myself to use the Windows command line uh or the the emulated subsystem for Linux in order to use neovim for example on Windows whereas in Linux I'm using the terminal anyways and I can just um you know go to my desktop and open up a new file.txt with neovim and I have neovim here natively running in my terminal I know that this is not too important for a lot of people but for me this is a game changer I like using neovim in a terminal especially for editing simple files not for long programming sessions but for editing simple files I just love to use neovim and other terminal tools as well I like that I have btop running uh instead of a task manager that I can use terminal tools like this this is just something that works on Linux much better and in addition to that of course developer tools every developer tool is super super easy to install on Linux or almost every developer tool this is almost you know this compatibility issue that you have with Windows where you want to get something running on Linux that works easily on Windows it's almost the other way around for developer tools I have the experience or I have the feeling that when I want to install something that's a developer tool that's a command line based developer tool it's 10 times easier to install it on Linux and it's harder to do it on Windows because on Windows you don't have package managers by default you have to install something like uh choco or you have to find some workaround you have to emulate something on Linux you just you know use your package manager pseudo app install and then whatever tool you want to have and maybe you have to add some repository or something but it's super super convenient to just install packages on Linux easily so the package manager itself is a is a big point for me having package managers well integrated in the system not having to to constantly go to websites to download packages or to download package files or installers it is a big thing for me um also updates you know I can just say pseudo app update then I can say afterwards pseudo appt upgrade and then all my software is up to dat I don't have to do anything else it's just convenient so the first thing I would say is for a developer Linux based systems are extremely convenient it's just very easy to do developer stuff it does not apply to a lot of other areas it does not apply for uh to to people that are mainly using their system for you know browsing or office work but for developers Linux is just in my opinion way more convenient than Windows especially because the per terminal is so uh powerful so that's one thing uh the second thing is Linux systems are by Nature since they're open source extremely customizable you can basically do whatever you want with your system and this can be done in a very simple way often times there are options for that but if you want to go the hardcore route if you see something is not possible you can just you know reprogram the system you can just develop your own code and put it into the system so there's literally no limit with Linux because you can just um you can just code your own Linux you can just code your own components in Linux your own applications and you can access every single piece of the operating system because it's open source you can see the source code and you can change the source code uh but even without going as deep you can just you know do a lot of customization that's not possible on windows so a very simple thing on Linux it's not uh on Windows sorry it's not possible easily to have the possibility to just use super and enter to open up a command line uh I tried to do this it is not possible what I could do on Windows is I had the the taskbar and I could do you know Windows key and one to open the first icon Windows key and two to open the second icon but I could not just customize my keyboard shortcuts I could not say Okay um super key and F opens def file explorer Super Key and S opens F search Super Key and T or super key and enter opens the terminal uh Super Key and B opens the browser and stuff like that this is something that I can do easily on Linux same goes for theme customizations for all sorts of settings for system drivers I can customize every single thing of my system I own a system it's my system I never Force to do updates if I don't want to do them I can do with my system whatever I want because I have the source code I have full access to everything and it's just extremely customizable and for me that's very important um and maybe another reason which is more emotional it's not really a logical reason for why Linux is better it's just it just fits my style of using a computer much more I like this hacky way of using an operating system I like it to be efficient automated I like to have procedures for everything I like to have my uh bash RC file where I have all these shortcuts I like to have my um I like to have my uh neovim config which I can edit I like to have all these things set up exactly the way I want them to be set up I want to have my operating system uh tailored to my needs and as efficient and automated as possible I like using the command line I like the design of Linux systems I like the design of Pop I like how everything is structured I like having the workspaces here I like having uh the tiling mode where I can just say windows uh Windows Y and then I can open up Terminals and it tiles them automatically I like having this style of operating system it's not really a logical thing it's just emotionally I feel more at home using a system like this than using Windows um so those are the main reasons I switched to Linux um a lot of people might also put in into the reasons ethical concerns and privacy concerns um I care about privacy but this would not be a reason for me to switch from Windows to Linux if Windows was the better operating system in every other way I would not care about the Privacy too much so this is not the reason I switched but it's one extra reason if you care about this now let's talk a little bit about the downside of using Linux what am I maybe missing I am definitely missing a proper um Native support for MS Office I like using Microsoft Office I think Microsoft Office is a wonderful Suite it's it's a lot of wonderful tool collection of word excel PowerPoint and all that and I don't think that any software that is available on Linux can replace it properly I don't think Libra office is as good I think only office comes very close to replacing MS Office I think when you use only office it looks like you're actually using EXO um but it has its limitation it's not the same tool it's made for compatibility it's enough for working with files that should also work on Linux uh on Windows but it's not the Perfect Replacement it doesn't have all the features it's not the same software so this is one thing that for me is a problem for a lot of people Adobe tools are also a problem I don't use any Adobe tools but if I was using them I would not be able to run them on Linux I would have to use Windows for that um occasionally you will encounter pieces of software that don't offer native support for Linux um I think notion is one of them but notion the good thing about notion as you can see down here I have it um is that there or I think actually notion might be supported through a snap package official officially but I think that for a while it was not supported and there were still Community packages because it's basically just an electron app and you can uh turn it into a Linux compatible package and all that but certain pieces of software just don't offer a desktop client for Linux Evernote I think doesn't offer a native Linux client uh the Venture resolve does offer a Linux client but it has limitations you cannot use certain codecs for whatever reason unless you use the premium version so using Linux means that a lot of software is not going to be to be available for you perfectly out of the box and that you have to find workarounds or alternative software or a way to use that software maybe on Windows and then go back to Linux it's not always perfect so compatibility is always an issue on Linux um some tools also don't have perfect Replacements so simple things I'm talking about very simple things like the uh emoji keyboard on Windows you might think it's stupid why do you need an emoji keyboard I happen to use it quite a lot I happen to use the emoji keyboard on Windows occasionally because on notion I like to have my tasks in the to-do list and I like to have icons so if I have the task you know um record a video I will have an icon of a sorry uh I will have an icon of a camera next to it and when I have the task um I don't know write a book I will have the icon of a book or when I have the task uh do some freelancing work I will have a laptop as an icon and you know this is a small example but the emoji keyboard on Windows is not perfectly replaceable by smile I think smile is a nice keyboard I can use it here um but it is not the Perfect Replacement it has problems that the windows emoji keyboard does not have and I cannot find a proper replacement for it it's a small thing it doesn't kill the operating system for me but it's a small thing that I don't like uh same thing with G paste G paste is a good somewhat good alternative for the multiple clipboards on Windows but I think the multiple clipboards on Windows just work better for example so there's certain things that I cannot really fix at this point that I just you know have a problem with but they're not killing the operating system for me another thing and this is interesting is that on Linux you know you can open up pdf files with ocular for example or with document viewer uh the problem is that Linux does not support scrolling um so automatic scrolling with the middle Mouse button because the middle Mouse button the center Mouse button is used for pasting and I know that the Linux Community gets very angry when you say you want that feature because they say this is not the Linux way of doing things but this is also a thing that for me is just not nice that I cannot change this it doesn't seem to be possible to properly use a middle Mouse button auto scroll rolling I can do something approximating it I can you know hold the button and then move my mouse but I cannot get the same behavior that I'm used to from Windows but those are just small things that I'm missing about using Windows um however there were a lot of things that were hard in the beginning that don't really matter anymore so a lot of things that are inconvenient in the beginning but in my daily Linux life right now I don't really notice them so for example in the beginning there's a lot of setup and troubleshooting that you need to do you want to connect multiple monitors I mean in popos I need to mention pop OS is a very easy to use and easy to setup system it's very compatible out of the box so I had almost no problems with it but certain things just didn't work out of the box certain things like my headphones had some audio problems um when I connected them to uh to my PC here and this was something with a Bluetooth connection so I needed to go into these settings I needed to uh edit some config files and then I wanted to do some something else and I had to do uh another configuration for basic functionality of the system and maybe for you that's a Wi-Fi connection maybe for you that's using three monitors maybe for you that's using uh a specific audio interface whatever it works in the end so you can make it work but it's a process you cannot just plug and play Linux you don't install Linux and everything works out of the box the way it does maybe for a Mac system and often times also for Windows you have to do troubleshooting setup and you have to play around exper M you have to go into forums you have to go on Reddit you have to go into the different uh support uh channels mattermost for example and you need to ask questions to make things work as of right now I'm not doing that really anymore I don't know when the last time was that I visited a forum to fix and bug I am satisfied with my system but it took some time for me to get to this point it was not plug andplay at all and I understand that a lot of people have a hard time switching to Linux because they don't want to waste time on getting basic basic functionality working so this is something that can be annoying in the beginning but it doesn't really matter once you're pass this so I don't have the problem anymore really um another thing is of course some things are a little bit more buggy than on Windows and it's not really a big problem but it's something that you need to you know sometimes things just glitch sometimes things just don't work and often times again this is a process of finding a workaround or finding a fix once you have it it usually works but you just figure it out over weeks and months of using Linux and it takes some time for you to really get a system that works the way you want it to work um and of course in general even if everything works you need to get used to the Linux way of doing things things on Linux are done in a different way and often times it's not that you cannot replace a feature of windows it's just that you're not supposed to replace that feature because the Linux way of doing things is a different way of doing things and you know at this point I can say that switching back to Windows you know using Windows as my main operating system and leaving Linux behind and maybe having Linux as a 1% operating system that I occasionally boot in would be harder for me right now than it was to switch to Linux so I think that I would have more pain now switching to Windows than I had switching to Linux from Windows so I think it's all about getting used to it and getting used to Windows now would be harder to me than it was the other way around um yeah so those are I would say the main reasons why I switched and the main things that I don't like about uh Linux all in all I'm very satisfied I'm Not Looking Back I'm not thinking about switching back to Windows uh however I would also never get rid of my second hard drive I would never wipe Windows completely I need to have this backup of knowing that if there is a software I need to run I have Windows I can use Windows for gaming I can use Windows for Excel I can use Windows for PDFs for every tool out I need I don't usually do it I don't usually use Windows as as a replacement for software I I'm much more likely to find an alternative and to just accept that certain features in this alternative are not existent but I need to have this backup so yeah now the question might arise should you switch now to Linux full-time as your operating system now fundamentally that's up to you but I would recommend what you could do is if you have the possibility for example on a desktop PC get two hard drives install Linux on one hard drive and have this dual boot setup that I have have and try to use Linux as much as possible don't get rid of Windows have your Windows system use it for gaming use it occasionally if you cannot find uh a way to make Linux work use it if you don't have the time to experiment around with Linux but other than that try to use Linux as your main operating system for one two or three months set up everything that doesn't work uh troubleshoot you know try to fix the box that you encounter and see if you can live with Linux and maybe you will notice that that using Linux as a developer is more convenient in using Windows and maybe you don't even want to use Windows anymore this is the case for me I just enjoy using Linux so much more than using Windows and once you get over the bugs once you get over the problems that you have initially it's in my opinion really the better operating system uh however maybe you notice that that's not the case for you then just stick with Windows Windows is not a horrible system Windows is a nice system as well I just prefer using Linux uh one thing that I will mention though is if you choose to switch to Linux as your full operating as as your full-time operating system you will contribute to Linux being more compatible longterm because most of the problems that we have with Linux are due to lack of compatibility and the lack of compatibility comes primarily from not enough people using Linux the market share in the desktop operating system uh Market is very low for Linux systems and because of that people don't really care about Linux that much they don't have to offer the software to Linux people because most people are using Mac Mac or Windows anyways why care about Linux more people going to Linux means more comp compatibility for Linux systems longterm this includes probably also gaming so uh yeah if that's something that you want to be a part of you can consider switching to Linux uh yeah so that's it for today's video I hope you enjoyed it and hope you learned something if so let me know by hitting a like button and leaving a comment in the comment section down below and of course don't forget to subscribe to this Channel and hit the notification Bell to not miss a single future video for free other than that thank you much for watching see you in the next video and bye

Channel: NeuralNine

Views: 102,635

Keywords: linux, pop_os, why use linux, pop os, Pop!_OS, linux pop os, reasons to use linux

Id: 21IqiTIsqmk

Length: 21min 47sec (1307 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 31 2023