Linux

When people think of operating systems in our modern era, their minds genuinely wander to Windows 10 or 11, or if you own an Apple product, you think of MacOS. Linux too is an operating system, one that generally requires more knowledge of computers to both setup and operate smoothly with, but also one that can allow for total freedom over your operating system, and has many perks over operating systems offered by corporations like Microsoft and Apple.

My journey with Linux started with an iMac. It was given to me by my grandparents, and belonged to a relative of mine beforehand. I felt wrong going through that relative’s hard drive, so I decided to factory reset the computer, with the intent that I’d be able to set up the operating system from scratch.

What ended up happening was a slow realization that I couldn’t download the operating system from Apple, but I did just so happen to have a USB stick flashed with a Linux ISO file on my desk, so I decided to load that up, and it worked beautifully.

For quite some time, I had used a Linux operating system called Pop OS! my iMac for quite a while as I found it was the most convenient option, and that it caused the least amount of crashes compared to various other Linux distributions (or “distros” as they’re commonly called). My curiosity was eventually piqued by a well known distro, Arch Linux, known as a more advanced operating system to use, and for the initial setup, it was definitely quite the challenge, but eventually it became my main operating system to use, mainly because once you get used to the various workings of Arch, it became a very fun operating system to toy around with, as there are many fun apps to try out, many convenient ways of completing certain tasks compared to Windows, and best of all, the terminal.

The Linux terminal is a command line program that allows you to do literally anything you desire with your operating system. It is freedom and power over your entire operating system, if you want Linux to delete itself, you can absolutely make it happen, and quite easily too. There are far less destructive things that can be done with it however. I generally use the terminal for things such as: updating the operating system, installing and building applications, opening applications, editing system files when necessary, using it to find out details about my computer’s hardware, fixing broken components, mass deleting apps I have no use for anymore, forcing apps to close when they refuse to do so from a simple click, and sometimes I just open it and find out a new cool usage for it. The terminal is easily one of the most appealing parts of Linux to many people, and I am definitely among them, it is an absolute joy to use, even though admittedly commands fed through it yield unexpected results from time to time.

Learning about Linux has gotten me very interested in computer programming, as many developers find it to be far more convenient than Windows for those types of tasks, and there’s a good chance I’ll delve into that once I have a computer more suited for heavier workloads. But for now, Linux is what is keeping my otherwise e-waste iMac up and running, and makes it a perfect device to use for light work, as well as being fun to mess around with in my free time.