How I feel when using Linux

TL;DR I feel good when I’m using Linux.

I’ve always liked the idea of using Linux. You know, all the FREEDOM! stuff ideologically resonates with me. However, that feeling was never strong enough to get me past all of the little paper cuts I get from it.

But I’m persistent. Over the past couple of months, I’ve immersed myself in Linux. I don’t know how else to learn whether something can actually work for me other than to move in and live there for a while. So that’s what I’ve been doing.

In case you didn’t know (I didn’t!), Linux is good now.

As a 40-year Mac user, this is a big change for me. Using a Mac has always felt smart. It felt good. Everything is so polished and things are always improving for the user. At least that’s how it felt until recently.

I kind of hate Tahoe. Liquid Glass is terrible and offers me nothing other than usability regressions. The only reason I look forward to new macOS releases now is hoping they fix what they did in the previous version.

Year over year, Apple has exerted increasing control over what should be my computer. Yes yes, it’s “more secure”, but if you’re not going to let me decide how daring I want to be, then we’re going to have words.

Anyway, I’m sitting here on my little Beelink mini-PC running Fedora/KDE and it feels like it’s just me and my computer. We can decide everything we want to do together. I’m in charge and that feels good.

If the experience of using Linux was poor, I might not bother. I’m at least somewhat pragmatic. The experience is not poor, though. In many ways, it’s better. And the gaps are closing quickly.

So yeah, using Linux feels good.