A Layman Learns Linux - Prologue

In this new series, I'll be documenting my ongoing (and still somewhat tentative) transition from Windows to Linux. Part 1 covers my initial reasoning for making the switch as well as my first exposure to Linux thanks to the Steam Deck!

I never thought I’d ever become a Linux user.  After all, Linux is that operating system for greybeards and tech-anarchists who spend half their waking hours in a terminal window, SSHing into their actual PC, which is located miles away in an undisclosed location, right? That would make for a much more interesting story than what I have to tell. 

I've been getting my hands dirty with Linux for the last few weeks, and I have the scars to prove it (some of which are self-inflicted). My motives for switching from Windows were and still are fairly petty, based upon some vague notions of ‘freeing’ myself from Microsoft’s grasp and subsequently having a bit more control over what happens with my PCs. I didn’t want my OS tracking or recording my daily activity to train a built-in AI assistant. I didn’t want Microsoft to decide that a perfectly usable PC was no longer eligible for OS updates. And most of all, I didn’t want the Start menu to serve me search results from Bing instead of finding files and folders on my own damn computer!

[muted retching noises]

Thankfully, there's not that much that I do on my PC in the grand scheme of things, so there aren't many Windows-only programs to which I feel any particular attachment. I browse the web, play games, ingest multimedia, type things, and occasionally edit some audio or video. It’s a pretty average suite of daily tasks. With that said, I’d rate my computer skills at slightly above average. I know how to build a PC and troubleshoot basic issues. I open the console maybe twice a year. I Google most error messages.

In all honesty, I intend to keep a Windows partition just in case (maybe I'll try VMs at some point?), but I started this journey with the intent of experimenting with Linux and, if I eventually found a distro I liked, potentially transitioning to using Linux as my primary operating system. I'm still undecided after my first month. Nonetheless, the experience has been instructive and interesting enough that I still consider Linux a viable alternative to Windows, even if it has humbled me at nearly every turn.

Prologue: The Steam Deck

I’ve owned Valve’s handheld PC for roughly three years now, and I love that chunky bastard. I’ve brought it on train rides, emulated everything from the NES to the WiiU, hosted 4-player co-op games on a projector, and streamed graphically demanding titles from my gaming PC to my TV — and that’s all in SteamOS’ gaming mode. You can read my old review of the Steam Deck here. 

What many may not realize is that the Steam Deck’s operating system is actually based on Arch Linux and comes with a full-fledged desktop mode. As a result, SteamOS was my first official hands-on experience with Linux, and to tell you the truth, I was very impressed from the first time I booted into the desktop. It immediately felt both lightweight and shockingly feature-rich.

Putting my Steam Deck through its paces back in 2022

Now, to be perfectly honest, I very seldom access the desktop – I’m mostly in there to install/configure third-party software and occasionally do some light web-browsing on my TV – but the handful of hours that I’ve spent in the SteamOS desktop have done wonders to demystify the world of Linux. 

Much of this is thanks to KDE Plasma, the desktop environment or ‘skin’ that comes installed with SteamOS and determines much of the interface’s look and feel. It's very similar to Windows with a few neat tricks of its own, such as being able to click the little + button found on most file and folder icons to select several items at once (instead of having to use ctrl + click), or the ability to mouse over an application on the taskbar and adjust its volume from the pop-up preview. 

An underrated feature!

It would have been disingenuous to call myself a Linux user at this point, though, even if it was true in the most literal sense. I had never actually interacted with many of the things that made SteamOS Linux. I essentially had been using it as Windows Lite, which, looking back, was both a blessing and a curse. My feelings towards Linux were slowly but steadily trending upwards as time went on, but at the same time, I wasn't exactly 'kicking the tires' in a way that accurately represented how I would fare if I decided to use Linux as my daily driver. 

There was so much that still eluded my attention and understanding. What is a superuser? Why is my SD card accessed through /run/media/ instead of a drive letter? What are these Flatpaks that I'm downloading through the Discover app store, and where are they installing?

The next steps in my journey would teach me how much I had taken for granted throughout my decades of PC usage.

Next time: Mint (with Cinnamon)!