By skyforbes At the same time, I saw Pewdiepie switching to Linux, and until then I always saw it as some dystopian piece of software that only the most accomplished knowledgeable people in computers used. But him out of all people using it gave me confidence. I didn't want Ubuntu because on first sight it really did just look like Windows but for Linux users, who are too afraid to let go of the past, and considering it was a pretty heavy distro, I looked for other options, and landed on Zorin OS, the Lite version, to be specific. And thats where I really started to like Linux.
Now, mind you, I didnt use my laptop for gaming, far from it in fact, because it was way too old, and even when it was released, it was a mid-spec laptop. But, my laptop was super-fast, especially because I had a massive SSD too. And if I am being honest, it got me super interested in computers that I never had before. I learnt more and more, customised how much ever I could, checked my limitations of my laptop. I eventually turned my laptop into a home server, I used tailscale and nextcloud to better utilise my huge ssd.
At that time, I kept hearing from the Linux community on how using arch was the true peak in Linux. Now, I did still use my laptop for my college work, and I was pretty scared to install arch, and then I discovered Omarchy, an "opinionated" arch linux with hyprland distro, and I realised this was my way in. I got it, and thats where I learnt how far the depths of "customising" your OS really went. Now, currently, I use arch linux with hyprland, gnome, and kde plasma, and hyprland customisation really gave me confidence in customising other DEs, and I have made each of the DE's my own.
I use hyprland when I want to sit and program, GNOME when I am studying or researching, and KDE-Plasma for other stuff, because it has a pretty huge application store that I really appreciated.
Of course, I had my share of problems, I was an idiot at first, asking chatgpt for all steps when I needed something done, and I ended up deleting my bootloader from the system, of whose severity I didnt realise at first until I rebooted it. Two hours later, after a lot of swearing and slurs at Chatgpt, we managed to get it back, albeit I had to reinstall the entire OS back, with all my files gone. So, that was a lesson well-learnt.
All I want to say is, I wouldn't have had half the knowledge I have in computers today if it wasn't for Linux, and to be honest, my out-dated laptop. If my laptop was pretty decent-speced, I dont think I would have wanted to switch from Windows. But now that I was able to experience it without fear, I just know whatever laptop I do decide to get in the future, it will be running Linux for sure.
So, thanks to Linus Torvald and all the people who spend day and night making Linux better everyday.
edit: apparently my lack of paragraph breaks was jarring, so added them for readability, sorry in advance!