Title catchy enough? Sorry couldn’t help myself…
As this is my first blog post i believe a proper introduction would be in order! I’m Jonas Tranberg a 24 year old bearded guy from Aarhus Denmark who study Computer Science at Aarhus University Denmark. I have been using Linux for about two years now and as many other people my age i started my “OS-adventure” using Windows 95 and have since claimed the ladder of Windows versions until i reached Window 10. I still see Windows as a good platform for media and games (since that’s were it is being released…) but have as my knowledge about operating systems has grown started to doubt it’s superiority in just about everything else. Which led to my first real Linux leap of faith two years ago!
Humble start
I didn’t know much about Linux when i started to study computer science. I knew there was a thing called Ubuntu?! and a more lightweight version Xubuntu?! but other than that i was pretty much clueless. But i pulled myself together and dual booted Xubuntu onto my daily driver Window laptop. Yes dual-booted… i was a bit scared of what to come. Over the next year or so i started to spend more time in Xubuntu than Windows 10 and go better at navigating the terminal and understand how Linux worked. I even wrote a theme to make LightDM i bit more… well pretty.
https://github.com/naueramant/lightdm-webkit-sequoia
But things that i kept longing for was more control, a more active community and a better package manager… It’s not your fault Aptitude, your community just suck. Yes i said it. That’s when i found Arch Linux! Which was also surprisingly popular among the Master and PhD students at my university. So one weekend i decided to take the plunge!
The Arch Linux install
For any one who hasn’t installed or even heard about Arch Linux before, here is a short description:
“Arch Linux is an independently developed, x86-64 general-purpose GNU/Linux distribution that strives to provide the latest stable versions of most software by following a rolling-release model. The default installation is a minimal base system, configured by the user to only add what is purposely required.” – Arch Linux Wiki
As you might have figured it’s a pretty bare bone system. You are not even greeted with a nice graphical installer, it’s all in the terminal! The install process will scare almost anyone the first time they go through it. They will have to think about so many things which is normally handled for them such as:
- Configure keymap
- Select editor
- Automatic configure mirrorlist
- Create partition
- Format device
- Install system base
- Configure fstab
- Configure hostname
- Configure timezone
- Configure hardware clock
- Configure locale
- Configure mkinitcpio
- Install/Configure bootloader
- Configure mirrorlist
- Configure root password
- Install a graphical user interface (if you like that kind of things)
And a couple of more things but you get the drift. All this is impossible to know how to do the first time around so you will need the equivalent of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy in the Arch Linux community. The almighty Arch Linux Wiki! And more precisely the install guide. The Arch Linux Wiki is one of the most complete and greatest wikis i have seen for a distribution. It even have install guides for specific laptop models! That’s a dedicated community.
So i read the install guide and watched a couple of youtube videos explaining the progress, AND! i failed… it took me 3 attempts to get it right. Don’t tell anyone. But the result was amazing! A light system which looked great, was up to date and had access to the Arch User Repository (AUR) which in my opinion is the greatest and must up to date package repository of all the distributions i have seen so far.
For those interested my system ended up a long these lines
- BTRFS (B-tree file system)
- Partitions (Boot, Swap, Root mount)
- GDM (GNOME display manager)
- GNOME (Desktop enviroment)
- fish shell – https://fishshell.com
- Oh My Fish – https://github.com/oh-my-fish/oh-my-fish
- Bob The Fish Theme – https://github.com/oh-my-fish/theme-bobthefish
- Arc Theme – https://github.com/horst3180/arc-theme
- Papirus Icon Theme – https://github.com/PapirusDevelopmentTeam/papirus-icon-theme
- A bunch of GNOME extensions
Looking back
I was scary going from Windows to Linux but i do not regret it. Just thinking about going back to Windows as my daily driver makes me shiver… I feel so much more in control now and everything is possible are you willing to dig deep.
The upgrade from a safe an easy to setup and use distribution such as Xubuntu to Arch Linux might be scary but it’s worth it to face the fear. You learn a lot about Linux in the progress and the result afterwards is one kick ass system which is up to date and have access to a great package repository.
Also when you installed/reinstalled arch systems the 42th time you get tired of it and should allow yourself a little slack. I found mine in a great script https://github.com/helmuthdu/aui which is basically a todo-list for the install progress with some tedious tasks automated a bit. Check it out it is great and still give you all the control you need!
So should you make the switch to Linux?
Should you start with Arch Linux? Maybe not, but be adventurous! There are many great distros out there!
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