My year with Linux

The year is almost over and I think I can finally say that I managed to
find my Linux-distro with which I feel at home. I guess I must have
tried out almost a dozen of distros before I came to a decision which I
liked best. I did install all distros in multiboot in order to see &
feel the whole thing (e.g. installation process and how I'd get along
with the different commands and so on).

With almost every distro I ran, I had the feeling that my old laptop got
along much better with Linux than with Windows. It's easy to notice
because my fan is making a lot of noise when running Windows, especially
with HD movies and stuff. To cut a long story short, the winner is...

Parabola GNU/Linux-libre

On the one hand the installation process has been a bit of a challenge
for me but on the other hand I also learned the most about how things
work in Linux the past few weeks. When I got to the point where I could
start the XFCE desktop environment the hardest part was over. I had to
buy a new Wlan stick because there were no free drivers for the one I
used but otherwise I couldn't complain. I tried everything manually so I
learned some valuable lessons like setting up my network without a
network manager (which in the end I did install because of ease of
everyday use). I struggled a little with finding a good theme and nice
fonts because everything looked a little ugly at first. I found out,
that I had to enable display compositing in Window Manager Tweaks. Now I
am very happy, because the look and feel is not inferior to other Linux
distros or Windows.

I like all the ice-stuff like Icecat and Iceweasel browsers and the mail
client Icedove. There have been a few discussions here in the forum
about browser fingerprinting and how to measure it. Although I am not
exactly sure how accurate (and logic [as mentioned in the thread]) this
method is, I am getting a much better result with the Panopticlick test
now (one in 11,000 browsers have the same fingerprint as my browser).

I imported my firefox bookmarks and I did the same with my keepass
database. I had to change the password from OTP to a static password to
work with my Yubikey. When watching HD movies my laptop fan is not very
loud anymore so I guess it has something to do with Linux being more
frugal than Windows.

I still have a lot of things to do (my card reader is not functional at
the moment) and I don't know if everything is working as planned but it
certainly seems so at the moment. The system takes about 3 seconds to
boot up and about the same to shut down.

With regard to another thread here in this forum
(https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=353586&page=2)
I can say that I do like the philosophy of the GNU Project (the
articles I read so far) and that using free software has been a reason
for installing Parabola. I found the wilders security forums while
keeping myself busy with Linux. Thanks to a lot of encouraging articles,
comments, threads and links I delved deeper into the matter and I can
almost leave Windows behind (for the most part, I will still need it for
a few programs)

Edit: Sorry for the formatting, looks like I still have to get used to working with some browser addons.

 

Interesting thanks.

And I like the formatting. Narrower
paragraphs are easier for me to read.

 

Nice to read other's experiences in the Linux world. I started using Linux back in August, almost 6 months ago. The reason was probably a combination of Snowden leaks, Windows 8 flop and other bad moves by Microsoft in how they treat their loyal customers.

The hardest part for me was getting my trackpoint to work. It was an absolute must, I refuse to buy a laptop without a trackpoint and Linux doesn't support trackpoint out of the box. Took me about 2-3 weeks just to get that to work on Ubuntu and another 2 months to get it working on Debian. My biggest frustration was probably lack of community support towards trackpoint and lack of proper documentation.

Getting Wifi to work at school and finding the proper certificate was an adventure of its own that took me another 8 weeks.

Besides trackpoint and WiFi, Linux still feels to be more crash prone than Windows, so many things can go wrong and I have simply no idea why. Maybe I will end up installing Cento OS... And doing just about anything in Linux is harder...

So why do I use Linux? Because there is no other privacy friendly open source OS. Because my computer does run faster and smoother. And because I will do anything to not pay my hard earned $$$ towards corporations that sell out their user's data to the highest bidder and bend over left and right to the NSA.

 

I am particularly impressed with mint.My computer runs better now and network connectivity is better.

It literally takes 5 seconds for mint to shutdown.I still have a long way to go for better understanding of how this distro works.
Its a definate keeper and i doubt very much i will return to a windows system.

Linux has everything i need and it works perfectly to suit those needs.

 

This may help some of you - http://www.linux.org/

 

@Balthazar:
Did you try Manjaro?
It's also based on Arch, and it's very good.

 

Happy New Year everyone!

@zapjb
Thanks. You're right, it's easier to read. At first I was a little
shocked because I wasn't expecting a different formatting because I did
nothing different than before. Don't know how this post turns out.

@mattdocs12345
I didn't do much with Linux at the beginning of the year either, a little reading
here and there and some linux live cds. Snowden's revelations and a few
documentaries have been the reason to finally not only think about what I
can do to protect my data and privacy but to act at last. Until then I
liked Windows and despite not liking the big companies (I've never used
facebook in my life and I only have a non-personalized Google account
without gmail from back in the day when Google wasn't the giant they are
now), I did not mind very much. Now I don't use flash anymore (on
Parabola). For live sports I use another distro.

I have been worried about data security for a longer time because I lost
private data by accident and although it wasn't something useful or
sensitive information I didn't like the feeling at all. It made me a
little sick and I began using password safes and Yubikeys. The
information Snowden was leaking to the press made me angry but I was
more furious with most people not reacting at all („I have nothing to
hide") including politicians. I decided to try out a VPN and to finally
move away from Windows.

I've never been using a trackpoint and I also made some frustrating
experiences but all in all it has been very interesting and not as hard
as I thought. It's simply a matter of getting used to something new and a
little different. I don't miss Windows anymore! On the contrary, now I
am irritated when using Windows because it is like you say: Linux does
run faster and smoother on my laptop as well.

I supported several petitions in my country and I want to support those
developing free software. Prism-break has been and still is a great
source of information in finding alternatives to proprietary software.

Of course, there's more to it than the above mentioned. It's actually a
lot of fun working with Linux and learning a little every time. I set up
a raspberry pi and I am loving it. You can do so much with this thing
and everyone can afford it.

@ The Red Moon
I read your thread about ditching Windows. Hats off to you! Compared to
you, for me it has been a (relatively long) process of getting used to
Linux until I felt comfortable enough to working with it every day. I
still have several systems in multiboot just in case something doesn't
work as planned. I have some expensive programs that don't work on Linux
and I want to be able to use them in case I want to. Happy for you that
everything is working fine for you on Linux

@fblais
Yes, I tried it and still have it available in multiboot (together with
Crunchbang, Mint Debian, Parabola and two Windows systems). It's been
very easy to set up and I like the look of it. Very stylish. I decided
to use Parabola because of the philosophy of using free software only
(there's also a nonprism repository).
It would be too time-consuming keeping all these different distros up to
date but it also has its advantages being able to boot up a handfull of
systems. I don't need a network connection for every distro.