Windows 7 to Arch: My Journey & Personal thoughts.

Hello, so you may have known that I have switched to Arch Linux, and as a (never using) distro hopper myself, I chose to stay in Arch Linux.

The Journey to Arch Linux

My interest in Arch Linux caused me to nuke my HDD, and start new in my new OS, and I do not regret that choice. It all started with my profile post (http://gbatemp.net/members/thekingy34.383904/?page=5#profile-post-58805) in which I have publicly said I am using Arch for the first time, this was just before me nuking my Windows partition and starting new. I regreted it at first, and wanted to go back.

I done some digging, and what interested me more is the customisable, well... Everything! It was looks-paradise to me, and I wanted to have a great performing, and great looking OS that I'd use on a daily basis, I started with XFCE then MATE (Same opinion, but Xfce slightly worse.). Loved every second of it, it looked great, it worked great, and it was great, and I have even taken screenshots of it. (http://i.imgur.com/Oq6IWXy.png) But I wanted more, I wanted to dig deep into the Linux mine of great looking and performing software, and see what I could get. I asked others of what DE they are using and why they use it.

Next up, LXDE. I did not like it, it didn't really work out as well as I thought, and wasn't as good as I hoped. I hated it, but now looking back at it, I could've gave it a fair chance and use it to my furthest abilities.

I started creating 'my own DE' by mixing panels and stuff to create a unique one, I kinda liked it. It was better than LXDE for me, but again, that one wasn't fair. However, I rebooted it. SO MUCH PROBLEMS! (which I was too lazy to fix)

At this point, I was out of ideas. I quit Arch Linux, and started going back to Windows. About a day-or-so later, I decided to fix my old Linux PC. Ding! Cinnamon, that's it! I am used to it, I know how to customise it, I-- well, it was perfect! I jumped back onto the Arch ship, and sailed ahead to get some of that fresh cinnamon. Here I am, it was Linux Mint all over again, but better. I installed my programs, and that's it. I did no change in looks until late yesterday.

Thoughts

I love Arch Linux. I love how free it is, and how perfect it is. It is lightweight, simple and elegant. If you require an image of it right now, here you go: (http://i.imgur.com/u9BlJrG.png).

I want to thank you for reading this, and you may suggest other DEs/distros for me to try. Goodbye, and I'll see you in the next post or blog or something, I guess.
  • Like
Reactions: 9 people

Comments

One of the reasons I prefer linux is the CLI. The problem I have with both Windows and Mac is how reliant it is on the mouse. If I have to start a program on say Windows, I have to open the start menu first, then click on all programs and then locate the program itself in some obscure folder with the name of the publisher. Then if it needs root access for that case (say cmd) I have to right-click it and select choose administrator. (Yes I can search for it, but that takes ages.)

Whereas on Linux all I have to do is open a terminal and type in the name of the program. That is not even getting started on launch flags which are almost impossible to set with Windows (only possible through shortcutes) and are actually impossible on Mac.

To be honest though, I just don't like having to use the mouse in general. I'm much faster on keyboard than I am with the mouse. Linux is more oriented towards keyboards than Mac and Windows. That is part of why I prefer it over the other OSes.

EDIT: Same with software managment. On Windows and Mac I have to go to a dubiously trustable site to install software, whereas on linux I only have to type apt-get install <packagename> (or for Arch: pacman -S <packagename>)
 
@Ev1l0rd uh most windows programs that support being used purely with the command interpreter also usually add themselves to the path, you can manually do this if you wish too. After that you can run the program by typing it's name in cmd. Not really a + for linux
 
Not particularly gaming related, but somewhat relevant in "Windows vs. Linux": While developing my ROM Properties Plugin, I've found that most of the effort I've spent in developing the UI frontends has been on the Windows side, mostly because Windows UI development in C++ is a pain. A quick sloccount of my current build (a1e334d2) shows:
  • KDE: 1,500 lines
  • GTK+: 1,969 lines
  • Windows: 4,938 lines
The KDE version is usually what gets functionality first, since that's my primary desktop environment. The Windows build has around the same functionality, yet I needed 3,400 more lines of code to achieve it.

EDIT: This is only counting the UI frontend directories. There's some Windows-specific backend code located outside of the UI directories.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person
@KevinX8 - On Linux all programs can be launched from the terminal. Not just CLI exclusives.

On that note, about the path. Here's how you set it on Windows: Go to some obscure location in the config program you would never choose to look for otherwise, and add the exe directly. There's no folder support and iirc it can even bork when your path is over 255 characters.

On Linux on the other hand, all I have to do is edit .bashrc to include the folder that needs to be added. A single line a single configuration file.

Actually, about that. Windows config program is shit. On Windows 10 there are two config programs, but neither contain all of the options. One setting might be in the first and another one might be in the second. And that's not even getting into the fact on how many sub-menus each config program has. On Linux, most configs can simply be set by typing a line in a file and saving it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 3 people
For fuck's SAKE

I swear.

My thinkpad got Antergos, works PERFECTLY.

My ASUS laptop however, couldn't even boot the fucking live cd, freezes at the Antergos logo.
This fucking laptop rejects anything that is not Windows, i swear .-.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 people
@VinsCool does it have a nvdia card? If that's so use manjaro, antergos has shit nvdia support.
 
Weird, my Asus laptop works fine on every single OS under the sun that I've put on it. Heck as we speak I'm running Andriod-x86 on it because fite me.

What model?
 
@VinsCool Uh I don't think there is any support for 6th gen i7 intel processors on arch yet so maybe that's why it ded on boot
 
@KevinX8 At this point I never bothered using anything else than Windows 10 on this machine heh :P
I just never got anything to run properly. and when it ran, it ran like shit :P
 
Looking at wikipedia it says you need minimum linux kernel 4.5 to even boot a distro but then it doesn't even have power state support so it will just kill your battery so yeah seems like a hopeless endevour
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person
I'm just happy Linux likes older laptops. My Thinkpad is rocking Antergos, and I can say without any hesitation that it is already better than Mint.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person
Like in the blog post here, I was soooo happy with Arch + Cinnamon when i discovered it. All the fun I had with Mint before, with the freedom and openness of Arch!
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 people

Blog entry information

Author
Kingy
Views
1,256
Comments
230
Last update

More entries in Personal Blogs

More entries from Kingy

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
    K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2: https://youtu.be/22tVWwmTie8?si=2CEDZldUW5ODozYh meh