This is a 12 year dream. I have always run a Windows workstation along side a Debian laptop. I am no stranger to Debian. I have a 12 year association with it. I am not a Linux wizard yet but have been adept with it.
Why not use Debian daily then? My personal computing usage unfortunately centered around consumption rather than creation. I watched videos, listened to podcasts, read technical articles, and browsed social media. On top of this, inertia and great software like Visual Studio, Notepad++, Excel, OneDrive held me back.
Visual Studio is an absolute must-have for all .NET developers. I built small pieces of complex web projects only occasionally. VS Code on Linux is decent for .NET development but it is not the same. Though Jetbrains Rider existed along-side, it is unthinkable to drop Visual Studio. At least for dark matter developers.
Notepad++ is a fabulous software program that had no complete alternatives on Linux. I used it for scripting, text manipulation, note taking, dumping and editing thoughts. Scintilla-based equivalents Geany, SciTE exist, but do not come close.
MS-Office Excel is another remarkable software program with no real alternatives in other ecosystems. It is worth the 5K INR per year. Organizing data, life planning, and creating simple reports are a few of its greatest capabilities. Also, the formulas system is amazing. OneDrive is another great and a utilitarian software program from the Microsoft stable.
So, why now? I had the most fun and growth when I built things. I love the independence that comes with the experience of building things. As far as I can remember, I was always a tinkerer, thinker, builder, doer and explorer. After a decade or so of inaction, I needed a change. A few things fell into place recently.
- Windows is about to get a whole lot more annoying. An increase in ads, baked-in Copilot, and a suffocating push to outlook user-linked usage.
- Jetbrains Rider became formidable now for CLI and web app development.
- I learnt enough of apt-pinning, backports and makedeb repository.
- The last straw is from an unexpected experience. I set up a Win 11 VM recently using the KVM+QEMU route. I noticed that the VM's performance was quite responsive. KVM+QEMU despite all the pain felt worthy. I cannot recommend it enough.
Immediately I decided to remove Windows, install Debian with a Windows VM inside. I will write about various experiments and experiences over the next year. These are some of the sub-projects on my mind in no particular order.
- Write about this setup
- Implement a nice 3-2-1 backup strategy
- Write about significant alternatives
- Write about significant issues
- Linking to phone
- Configure monitoring, notifications and alerts
- Configure auto dark mode
- Find a way to play an old strategy game on Linux
I’ve dabbled with Linux for decades but only within the last year decided to make it a permanent switch due to a new career move. When I’ve previously used Linux it’s always been on a USB stick or something like that, so when something didn’t work I just tolerated it and ended up using Windows most of the time. By removing my Windows installs and doing a permanent switch I found myself more inclined to learn and fix the problems, though most of it is simply searching and searching until you find someone else who’s already solved it.
It’s not exactly been a smooth process, and in the end I ended up dual-booting both of my machines with Windows just for the odd thing that I couldn’t be bothered fixing, and it’s kind of silly that both of my Windows installs were so easy and set most things up automatically compared to the Linux ones. While I like Linux it certainly isn’t for everyone and I don’t care what anyone here says but Linux won’t be a desktop of choice for normal people for a long time, if ever. If the year of Linux ever happens it won’t be because everyone suddenly wakes up one day and decides they love FOSS, it’ll be because someone like Google rolls out an incredibly locked down version, such as ChromeOS, in a way that works for most people. The year of Linux won’t be what people on here want it to be. And I still think the Linux community has so many people in it with a shit attitude that people are often driven away just as they’re dipping their toes in. I was just looking at a post this morning that was asking the exact question I had and the first reply began with “Did you even bother to read the wiki?”.
Thanks for sharing. Agree, In had a few of these separate running, dual booting episodes and moved only now completely due to the right mental space and bandwidth.
I proclaimed multiple times in my life that Linux will always have less than 5% desktop users and that is perfectly fine. Forget normal people, even the most tech savvy users could never make the move.
For those of us who do, after the navigating the technical challenges, elitism, and hostility, it is indeed a lovely journey. I know everything will not be smooth and there will days of halted usage due to some breakages. The system if setup in a sensible way just like a server, it could reduce this friction to some extent.