what computer operating system I use?
Talking about Linux operating systems in the previous post made me want to elaborate on my time with Linux and where I am with it currently.
So I started being curious in Linux operating systems back when I was in High school, which was 09-13. I had saved up for a laptop of my own, some micro PC that barely could run anything after a few years... but was honestly a really lovely laptop at the time. Then my parents found out I did this and they took it away, got a ton of viruses on it and mad it so that I couldn't use the system at all. lovely. So being interested in IT I wiped it and found Ubuntu to put on. At the time Ubuntu wasn't a very "light weight" operating system, and I honestly couldn't make heads or tails of it ... and also I couldn't realize i would need to search up most of my questions to get it working. So I tried a few other Linux operating systems, I remember one in particular because it was a really neat operating system, it was something like "cloud Linux" where everything was hosted off of the operating system and as long as you could connect to the internet you could run the programs. a precursor to what I understand was Chrome OS.
But I found it to hard to get into at that time. So I stopped using Linux operating systems. I stuck with Windows as it made the most sense and was what I was just most used to. I had tried Ubuntu or mint and a few other distros over the years... but never really jelled with them, or understood what was interesting about them.
But I always wanted to because the "open-source" and free nature of the operating system always appealed to me. Much more than Paying for windows, and not being able to mess with windows. So when I started going back to College I decided to go through with giving Linux a "long-haul" try. or just giving it the benefit of the doubt, and continuing to keep using it till I got it working for myself. I had actually decided to do that the previous year, and it just lined up to be a new years resolution, so I went forward with it.
I used Ubuntu for the first 2 semesters of my schooling. It taught me a lot ... especially with how nice the operating system is now a days. I ran into a few issues, but really nothing that much. Part of that was how I was on a framework PC, but also it showed off how much Linux PC's have advanced in the 12ish years it had been since I last really tried them.
It also showed me how much my school environment does not support Linux operating systems and how hidden they still are currently. It was a very interesting experience.
During those two semesters I kept doing more dives into Linux and found peoples issues with it and why some people liked the systems for different reasons. One issue I thought was potentially going to be an issue is messing around with the operating system, and seeing what it is that I can do ...but also breaking the system and it not being useful for my classes, and for my work. Or also not having access to apps that I needed for my schooling. It wouldn't be good to not have access to things, or to run into dependency problems that occur because of that.
So as I was going around and learning about the operating systems I found that there are largely three distributions of Linux systems, Debian, Arch, and Red Hat. Then I learned people have different issues with each of them. what a surprise, nerds having issues with something and taking it upon themselves to change those things.
I ended up coming across Nixos several times and realized that was a system that I wanted to try. The immutability of the packages, the ability to rollback to a previous configuration, and the ability to just upload a few files that control your entire system all very much appealed to me.
the downsides though did not appeal to me, lack of documentation, and this confusing syntax??? it has an entire programming language for you to figure out what means what and how to include anything into your system... yeah that's awesome /s
I also don't personally mind the extra space that the packages take up, as I made my laptop with enough room in the SSD for that... thankfully we weren't in this current crises of the rammining or whatever it is going to be called where prices of ram and SSD's are through the roof because of AI companies.
Nixos has been an interesting time. it just works...and figuring it out is challenging. but it's also a fun time being able to to work out these puzzles!
I'll spend more blog posts trying to talk about nixos, and how it impacts me and things I'm learning about in regards to it.
but more than anything I want people to think that they can take the time to use Linux and how to go about utilizing the operating system. it's really not that bad! hmm I guess next post should be about how to make a bootable flash drive etc from windows ... maybe even what an ISO is.