For Me, The Command Line IS Linux
After reading Jason Evangelho’s and Oliver '0lzi' Kelly’s recent articles on the Linux command line (here and here respectively), it really got me thinking about about my own Linux journey and where I have ended up.
It was 2004 and I was roaming the aisles of my local Best Buy, probably looking for the new Ben Kweller album or something, when a green box on a shelf caught my eye. SUSE LINUX PROFESSIONAL. The weird lizard on the box and the tag “Simply Change” melded to my brain and I kept thinking about it the rest of the day.
I got home later that day and clicked CONNECT on my Earthlink dialup internet and scoured the WWW to read as much as I could about Linux. I was intrigued! Up until this point in my life, I had really only used Windows. I had friends who had fancy iBooks and I wanted in on that Apple lifestyle, but sadly on a touring musician’s salary I could only live that Gateway Life. The idea that I could “Simply Change” the operating system on my home computer was mind blowing.
I didn't immediately jump in with Linux, but the idea of it stayed with me. I was a touring musician at the time and this was pre-smart phone, so we kept lots of books and magazines around our van to pass the time on long drives from show to show. Any given day you’d find issues of Alternative Press or Rolling Stone littered about. Shortly after my Best Buy run in with the Green Lizard, I would start picking up copies of Linux Journal or Linux Magzine. I would read them cover to cover, several times over while riding shotgun through the cornfields of Illinois.
I ended up going back to Best Buy a month or so later and I bought (imagine paying for Linux!) that box of SUSE Linux and somehow managed to get it dual booting with my Windows XP machine.
It was…. underwhelming.
I remember not really knowing what to do with any of it and so much of the terminology made zero sense to me. I remember my wife calling me while I was away on a weekend run of shows. The power had gone out and when the computer rebooted, she wasn't greeted with the Windows login she was familar with. I guess it was time to “Simply Change” it back and remove Linux.
Not too long after that, I was gifted my very first laptop. It was an Apple Powerbook G4 and I LOVED IT. The rest, as they say, is history. I dove into the world of Apple. As a musician, it felt right for me and I continued to use Apple products for next 15 years or so.
Owning Apple actually got me deeper into computers than I had been when I was younger. I attained Apple Certifications that started me down the path of becoming a sysadmin, which has been my line of work for the past 13 years or so. Throughout that time, I have grown to love and use a plethora of both Unix and Linux tools, mainly centered around the command line.
I have had roles managing Apple, Windows and Linux desktops and servers. I spend a lot of time in the command line, writing bash scripts for automation or for deploying servers.
Outside of work, most of my personal computer revolves around some sort of content creation. I still write and record music and love creating and editing video. I have years and years of deep seeded workflows that revolve around macOS and to a (lesser) degree Windows 10.
I tried last year to switch my daily driver to the Linux desktop. I tried Ubuntu Studio. I have tried Pop_OS. I have tried all manner of distros from Manjaro, Fedora, Elementary etc.
My Downloads folder looks like where DistroWatch went to die.
For many reasons (which is probably a different article) I just have not been able to switch to a Linux desktop full time.
Between the Terminal/iTerm on macOS and the fantastic WSL2 on Windows 10 — I never have to reboot to access my most used open source tools.
Whether I am cranking out Bash scripts (Vim or NeoVim), learning Python or deploying a Github Pages site using Hugo, all I need to do is open a terminal. No reboots, no fiddling with desktop environments for hours, no weird JACK crashes. All of my Linux/Unix tools are a keyboard shortcut away.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a FAN of the Linux desktop. I root for companies like System 76 and Elementary who are genuinely driving new and exciting experiences on the desktop side of Linux. I love this freedom of choice! I love that these options exist and are freely available for people to use.
Who knows? Maybe someday I will be able to “Simply Change.”
