A week with Ubuntu
I had been using Windows since I started using computers but as I kept getting involved in coding, Windows kept becoming a roadblock with its weird inconvenient behaviours. I kept staying away from the thought of installing a Linux distro because of the problems it could cause like reinstalling the whole environment that I had set up on Windows.
But last week I got fed up with going in settings to change PATH variable, having to download and install applications in 2 procedures and much more…
And here starts the journey into the Linux world!
1. Choosing the Distro
The power and problem with Linux is the variety you get, there are so many distros, all with their own features and powers. On Windows we don’t get a choice so there is a uniformity in users and the problems you encounter might have been problems already faced and answered in stack overflow.
First war was between Linux Mint vs Ubuntu,
Linux-Mint has similar structure to Windows, but I didn’t want to be bored using same kind of interface, so I ruled it out. Also Ubuntu had a much stronger community and popularity.
I mistakenly opened Ubuntu flavors page, now I had to compare what tools and desktop environment I wanted to be inside the distro. I considered Generic Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Ubuntu GNOME. This time the war was more difficult to conclude as it was all about UI without using the UI. From screenshots and general comparison of features, I downloaded and installed Kubuntu (KDE + Ubuntu).
Installation process was easy and went like a breeze within minutes. I had to read some articles about partitions to know hot to dual-boot Ubuntu so I can still keep Windows as secondary OS.
2. First Time Experience
I didn’t have expectations of such a great UI from an OS you can get for free. It was beautiful and the tools it had were extremely easy to use. Best tools were bash and apt-get, it took less than a day to install all the tools I wanted. And all of those needed no interaction other than just 1 apt-get command, I didn’t have to press next or close some useless UI. I didn’t have to restart the terminal like in Windows. And best! I never had to manually change the PATH variable!
3. Built for programmers and hackers
Linux has a feel that it is made for programmers, you can hack it completely but it won’t push you back with blue screen errors. It gives you many build tools that require such extensive effort on Windows. Those that I didn’t have already installed were mostly just 1 apt-get away. I felt a sense of freedom and maturity in the tools. It automatically managed most of the packages under the hood so my directories were clutter-free, just beautiful!
4. All my work was right there!
Windows uses NTFS file system by default and doesn’t support Ex4 and Ex3 file systems which are default in Ubuntu. I had a deep fear that Linux might make me backup all my data to some common file system and then I will have to copy it back inside the Linux partitions. But gladly… it wasn’t true, Ubuntu supports NTFS! I first planned to use those partitions for work but they kept unmounting on restarts. So I copied my Projects folder into the permanently mounted partitions. It didn’t took very long and I easily switched all projects to Linux.
5. Some tinkering was needed
During installation it had asked for a swap partition which I had ignored (shouldn’t have), I soon found its importance as Chrome kept causing crashes and OOM conditions. I escaped many situations by Alt + PrintScr + K, that kills most RAM consuming task, but it still needed a permanent solution. I borrowed a 10GB partition from the unallocated space I had kept just in case /home partition will expand and I might need some extra space.
Swap was indeed needed! That fixed all freezes that I was encountering. Now I had much more free RAM and no application was getting restrained. In-fact, Minecraft started to run even more smoother than it did on Windows!
Other than that I had to change some grub settings and get used to typing sudo after some commands but nothing was pain.
That’s all folks!
I have attained such a great comfort inside Ubuntu OS that I am going to stick with it for as long as possible. It is a wonderful OS and I recommend everyone to switch if Windows becomes a hurdle for them too.
