My_linux_journey

It all started when my father decided to install Mandrake Linux on the parental computer. We were coming from Windows (3.1, 95 98, 98SE, Millenium) to Mandrake Linux, it was my first contact with this strange operating system.

Everything was working without any bug what i’ve found interesting was that the install process was based on installing multiple “packages”. At that time we had no internet connection so we had to get the packages from a cd or by any other offline method. Installing packages without internet connection was not always easy but it worked well. The desktop environment was close to windows, it was kde. A lot of tools were preinstalled and there was not limits to customization.

After that I entered university in 2005 and I’ve discovered Ubuntu 5.04 Hoary Hedgehog. It was a nicely build Linux distribution on one disc with the possibility to try the operating system by just booting on the disc. And on top of that Canonical the company who was creating Ubuntu could send you in your mail box a CD/DVD of the OS for free. I’ve ordered a lot of discs for my friends at the university.

I’ve also discovered/learned to use Debian during my studies (I’ve learned to love it).

But I needed a challenge and i wanted to dig more, at the same time i’ve discovered a linux distribution that i’ve runned for a while. And it was Gentoo Linux, i’ve bought a magazine about Gentoo and challenged myself to install it on my laptop. Some people said that it was the hardest Linux distribution. It tooked me some time because my computer was not that fast (it was a second hand corporate laptop) and i didn’t know the GNU/Linux system that well. But I’ve managed to install it, the documentation had helped me a lot (Gentoo documentation is really impressive). I’ve learned a lot thanks to Gentoo community and i’ve been a part of the website translate team. I’ve also discovered the now dead distro Sabayon who wanted to make an easier Gentoo install by using binaries and a prebuilt linux kernel.

I’ve used it for quite some time and one day i’ve decided to switch cause i had to reinstall my system and it takes some time to install/compile Gentoo packages. After a short stay on Debian i’ve discovered Archlinux.

That was what i needed a simple but powerfull distribution. The install process looked like Gentoo, it was minimalist and as easy to customize. The install process of packages didn’t require to compile applications and it was a fast installation. The package repository had a lot of packages and the community Arch User Repo can help to have a lot more. The documentation is also good, not as good as Gentoo but i can live with that, now that i have the base Linux knowledge. Thank you Gentoo !

Since then i am an archuser on my laptop and desktop computer, and a debian user on my server. It was a long journey. I’ve also tested others linux distributions also called “distro” but i did not stay with them for a while. I’ve used Fedora, Linux Mint, Manjaro, Antergos, EndevourOS.

On the desktop environment side i’ve used many versions of KDE and the old Gnome 2 which i’ve felt in love. (Nowadays i think Gnome 3 is not for me) I’ve used Xfce for some time and then switched to Openbox as a minimalist replacement. It was faster to compile on Gentoo. And then I’ve built my own minimalist environment using qtile on archlinux.

I’ve tested some desktop environments but always came back to qtile.

I think for now that I’ve found what i needed to use on a computer.

By curiosity i’ve also tested the BSD side of the force, it was a pleasant surprise to see a very coherent and well build system and documentation but it was not for me.