How Linux Won Me Over in Just 3 Months

In January, I finally followed through on my long-standing threat,or promise,to install Linux on my desktop. My goal was simple: see how far I could get using a Linux PC as my daily driver without extensive research upfront or heavy troubleshooting afterward. Since then, I’ve booted into Windows exactly twice. Once to scan a multi-page document that wasn’t cooperating in Linux, and once to print a photo for my kids’ school with almost no notice. The reason it took me three months to write this update? Nothing has gone catastrophically wrong.

It didn’t take long for my Linux setup to stop feeling novel and start feeling like, well, my computer. It’s not exactly a less annoying version of Windows,though it is less annoying,but the transition has been far smoother than I anticipated. Occasionally, finding and installing apps requires a few extra steps; sometimes it’s easier than Windows, sometimes harder. A handful of apps still don’t have Linux equivalents. I’ve also encountered some amusing bugs and a few genuinely frustrating moments, but overall the experience feels calmer and more robust than I expected. Even troubleshooting, in a strange way, feels satisfying.

Getting Fiddly

Everything that’s gone wrong so far has only gone slightly wrong,like a gaming mouse that only works in games, which is both a problem and a punchline. Some issues stem from specific hardware choices, like keeping my nemesis, the HP OfficeJet 8720 printer. Others come from my decision to use a relatively new rolling distribution based on Arch Linux,CachyOS,rather than a more mainstream, predictable release like Ubuntu.

Here’s my favorite fix so far. CachyOS includes Snapper, a built-in imaging tool that saves OS snapshots before installing or updating programs, letting you roll back if something breaks. It defaults to keeping 50 snapshots in the boot partition. When I installed CachyOS, I chose the recommended partition size: 2GB. That filled up fast. After a few weeks, Snapper warned me it couldn’t store more snapshots. (CachyOS has since updated its installer to default to 4GB, but that didn’t help me.) My only option? Boot back into the live image, shrink my rightmost partition by 2GB, and slide every volume to the right of the boot partition over by 2GB,one at a time,to expand the boot partition. It sounds silly, but it was straightforward and oddly tactile.

When I say “slide every volume,” I’m not exaggerating.

In January, I noticed my ethernet connection wouldn’t get an IP address from my router after waking from sleep unless I connected to Wi-Fi first. This drove me crazy. Fortunately, I could still use the computer while troubleshooting, since I have both connections, but I prefer ethernet. I learned the default Linux kernel driver for my ethernet card doesn’t always work well, so I installed a new one. I disabled IPv6, then re-enabled it. I ensured my wired and wireless connections appeared as separate devices to the router,no luck. I set static IPs on both ends and extended my DHCP lease timeout. Finally, I found the real culprit.

Years ago, trying to get my multigenerational Sonos speakers to play nice with my Unifi router, I followed forum advice and enabled STP,an older port-scanning protocol,on my networking switch. That worked fine with Windows, but in Linux, it made getting an IP take so long that the ethernet card gave up. Disabling STP fixed my desktop and, fortuitously, made my Era 100 kitchen speaker show up consistently in the Sonos app. Solving a problem on a new OS fixed a problem I’d created years ago on a different one. We learn by doing.

My current gremlin: the microphone on my Logitech Brio webcam doesn’t always transmit sound. Sometimes it’s silent from the start; other times it stops between meetings, and lately it cuts out mid-sentence. Likely because I installed EasyEffects, but I’m not sure yet. I have another mic,and other computers,so I’m not too annoyed. Yet.

On the flip side, some problems solve themselves if you wait. I wanted text extraction in KDE Plasma’s screenshot utility,a feature I missed from other OSes. The fix? Wait a week until Cachy updated to Plasma 6.6, which added it. Point for laziness.

Where We Left It

When I last wrote about CachyOS, I lamented the absence of the Arc browser. Several readers pointed me to Zen, an open-source, Firefox-based alternative that’s basically Arc. It’s good enough. Thank you, readers. I also grabbed a Spotify client from the Arch User Repository, set up git, and recompiled the ZMK firmware for my number pad. I even got ZMK Studio,a GUI keymap editor,working. For image editing, I’ve been using the Photopea web app. It’s probably not suitable for heavy photo work, but so far it’s fine.

I didn’t install howdy for webcam facial recognition unlocking, since it’s less secure than Windows Hello, which uses infrared 3D face mapping. By the developer’s own admission, howdy can be fooled by a photo. I’m not worried about my kids printing my picture to run sudo commands, but for now I’m typing my password. Microsoft and Apple have invested heavily in biometric authentication; Linux’s “hope someone volunteers” approach puts it at a disadvantage. Fingerprint auth works fine, but my desktop lacks a reader.

Gaming Part Deux

Cachy handles gaming well, with the caveat that I’m not playing competitive multiplayer games requiring anti-cheat, or anything pushing my RTX 4070 Super to its limits. I got Minecraft: Bedrock Edition working with MCPE Launcher,just enabled remote login and disabled vibrant visuals. My kids lost interest, but we had fun. I’ve also played Hardspace: Shipbreaker, Esoteric Ebb, Caves of Qud, and a little Baldur’s Gate 3. All ran fine. Hardspace ran through Heroic Games Launcher; the rest via Steam.

I replaced my ancient gaming mouse,which only worked in games,with a Keychron M5 vertical mouse. It’s been great in and out of games and has largely replaced my trackball.

Current Regret Level: Still Zero

Why put up with a computer that needed coaxing for ethernet, forgets its webcam mic, and refuses to sleep at random? Because these are outliers. It mostly just works, and fixing what doesn’t is fun.

I was happy on Windows until I wasn’t. I liked Windows! I’ve used it since childhood and built my own desktops for nearly 20 years. I didn’t decide to ruin the Start menu by making it search Bing instead of my files. I didn’t break indexing or rename Office document launchers so many times the OS forgot how to open Word files. I didn’t opt into any of that. My choices didn’t make Windows worse. Fixing Windows when it breaks isn’t fun because Microsoft ships its org chart.

But if my Linux browser can’t find my webcam mic because I installed EasyEffects without reading the docs? That’s on me. If half my OS suddenly switches to French? C’est parce que j’ai l’ajouté. I opted in. It’s the difference between running because you want to and running because you’re late for the train.

Linux follows the Unix philosophy: lots of small, modular pieces that each do one thing well, rather than monolithic programs trying to do everything. It’s a box of Lego, not an action figure. The skills I build,installing a spellchecker, changing drivers, adding repositories, configuring git,are transferable across the OS and its software. I think that’s neat.

I haven’t abandoned Windows entirely. My laptop still runs it, and I admit Microsoft nailed the Surface Pro as a tablet. It would be even better if Windows were less annoying, but Microsoft knows. And I need to stay current for my job. But my desktop doesn’t need Windows, and I’m having more fun with Linux, so I’m sticking with it.