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Operating Systems

Originally written: July 21st, 2021

Thanks to an awesome video, I was recently able to switch to Arch Linux. I was able to go through a lot less pain than when I was installing FreeBSD. I liked FreeBSD, but I had to come to terms with what it lacked: DRM support, the Haskell Stack, Rust Cargo, ... I would use it again for a server, but maybe not for a desktop environment.

In any case, post-installation, I decided to try and track all the Operating Systems that I've used thus far. Here's a list:

  • Windows. My primary OS that I've used throughout my life, ever since I had a computer up until up I made a switch to Linux. Unfortunately, I can't recall when I switched to different versions of these Operating Systems.
    • 2000
    • XP: The Eternal OS. In Korean PC Bangs, XP stayed for a very long time. I was surprised (but also not surprised) to see XP running on Cuban computers in 2016. I'm sure there are still computers out there running XP.
    • Vista: Reminds me of the backlash against Vista, partially due to the trust XP had garnered.
    • 7
    • 8: I recall a personal backlash against this OS, since they wanted to design it like a tablet/mobile OS.
    • 10

  • Linux/Unix. Back when I still didn't know anything about software development, somebody told me that I should switch to Linux, and I somehow just...listened to some random person on the internet. That it would make development work easier (well, that person was right, I guess...) This would start my still current use of Linux/Unix.
    • Linux Mint: 2019/09 ~ 2020/12. My first Linux distro, and the one I used for longest. I chose Mint because it was supposedly easiest for beginners. It was a great environment to get used to Unix and the CLI world.
    • CentOS: 2020/01~2020/06. Primarily used for work for our server. Didn't do much on it, but didn't find much different from Mint than yum.
    • Manjaro: 2020/12~2021/05. The successor to Mint. I loved Manjaro. Easy to install, much faster than Mint.
    • Ubuntu: 2021/01~2021/04. Used as a VM, but didn't find almost anything foreign.
    • FreeBSD: 2021/05~2021/07. As much as I appreciate BSD for its stability and security, it was a painful experience to use for a desktop environment.
    • Arch: 2021/07~. Current installation on my personal laptop. Honestly, I love it. I love the fact that it's so light and not bloated -- I was surprised to find the canonical firefox installation missing from the install. I only need to install what I want, only what I need. Even still, installation was surprisingly painless.

  • macOS. I've actually never really used macOS, other than for work recently.
    • Catalina(10.15): 2021/06~2021/09

I have also used various Desktop Environments by using Linux/Unix, which I rank as

  1. GNOME. Sleek and easily configurable. Everything works out of the box nicely.
  2. xfce. Kind of a pain to deal with sometimes, but also very light.
  3. Cinnamon. Very Windows-like and friendly to beginners.
  4. MATE. Nothing to complain about, but also nothing to exude about.
  5. KDE. Perhaps I've just had a bad experience, but it was just killing my computer when I tried to use KDE. I couldn't use it for longer than a few days.