In 2011, I gave Ubuntu a try. I didn’t care for the Gnome GUI but I did like KDE and XFCE. I started using Xubuntu as my daily driver and in 2013, I kissed Windows 7 goodbye for the last time as I deleted its partition and never looked back.
The more I experimented and learned about Linux, the more I fell in love. I’ve been monkeying with computers since I was about 9 years old when my parents got a Timex-Sinclair 1000 for Christmas. We graduated to a Commodore 64 and I had a blast typing in programs from magazines like Compute! and RUN. At the turn of the 90s, when IBM clones were overtaking the PC market with MS Windows, I became disallusioned with the industry. It seemed as if I no longer had such complete control over the computer like I had with the Commodore or Timex. Other companies like Apple and Atari had their own platforms but they were all eventually run out of town by the likes of Bill Gates. Only Apple managed to hang on while keeping their OS and hardware unique.
Then I met Linux. Suddenly, I could make my computer do whatever I wanted it to do, just like computers did in the 80s. Sure, I could have always wrote some C++ or C# but there’s a big difference between juggling IDEs and compilers vs. just typing in a command and having the computer do what it’s told. We don’t have BASIC here but we can write very powerful scripts in Linux that are just as easy to implement.
Sure, Microsoft had a command line too but even with Powershell, one simply doesn’t enjoy the complete control over the system like one does with Linux. Even without touching the terminal, one can customize the look and feel of a Linux desktop using XFCE or KDE like one never can with Windows. And technically, Windows doesn’t even use the shell for program execution. Windows 98 was the last version to rely on the shell and ever since XP, it’s just an emulation.
Over the past 11 years of using Linux exclusively, I’ve tested other distros but always went back to Xubuntu until I switched to Kubuntu around 2021. I’ve tested Mint, Fedora, Debian, Alma, Rocky, Oracle, Kali, and SUSE but always came back home to Kubuntu.
A lot of software nowadays seems to have a crippled, dumbed-down UI that looks like it was designed by Fisher-Price. Forget about customizing anything. Canonical’s Unity desktop is a great example of this. Thankfully, there are other desktops one can choose, but just the fact that Canonical did Unity left a bad taste in my mouth, almost as bad as systemd. I eventually got used to systemd and I like some of its features but I cannot get used to Unity/Gnome 3’s shitty UI.
But an even greater sin than Fisher-Price UIs and systemd is at work. Introducing – snaps! Hey man, it’s so easy to install, it’s a “snap!” (as if typing ‘apt install x’ is a burden). No more tracking down depenencies? Big whoop, dnf (and apt) already do that. I don’t need to clutter my computer with multiple copies of the same library just because each program wants its own. Nonsense! Snaps are very slow to work with, inefficient, and goes against the Linux design philosophy.
I’ve tried Fedora a couple of times over the years but due to software availability or some other reason, I always went back to Kubuntu. I recently downloaded the KDE spin of Fedora 40 and all I can say is, “wow!” I’m really enjoying the “bleeding-edge” as they call it. However, that “bleeding-edge” can really hurt if I’m not careful. I find that I have to install updates more often and sometimes things can feel a little unstable compared to Ubuntu. So for now at least, I’ll keep all of the servers on Xubuntu and run Fedora on the main PC and laptop. I already know the differences between Debian and RedHat because I work on RedHat-based machines at work so the transition has been painless. So far, so good!
Thank you IBM for allowing RedHat to continue sponsoring Fedora. Killing CentOS was an asshole thing to do but other companies are filling the void. Please don’t make the same mistake again with Fedora.